Fortnite community split by Twitter war after Epic Games cracks down on wagers

After Epic Games announced a crackdown on wager matches in Fortnite, dueling groups of fans split the community and got #ripFortnite and #ThankYouEpicGames both trending on March 26.

Outside of official competitions and in-game tournaments promoted by the developers, wagers were a favorite of top-level and pro players when public lobbies and Arenas just weren’t cutting it.

On March 25 though, Epic announced they would be cracking down on the popular unsanctioned competitions – at least for players under the legal gambling age.

NRG’s Cody ‘Clix’ Conrod announced on Twitter that Epic has messaged him and told him to stop wagers, or risk getting a ban. It didn’t take long for the news to split Twitter, with some proclaiming #ripfortnite, and many others backing up the publishers with #ThankYouEpicGames tags, both of which got trending.

#ripfortnite takes over Twitter

While the #ripfortnite trend started off with players complaining about the “death” of wagers, it quickly evolved to focus on what some people see as “the good old days” of the game in the most popular tweets.

But wagers weren’t the only thing people seriously using the hashtag were focused on. In addition to more enforcement there, other recent changes to the battle royale quickly came under the microscope, as well.

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“Yeah, #ripfortnite killed a region, platform, and wagers,” Twitter user ProfZachy said, referring to Epic’s recent decision to remove Arena Duos and Arena Box Fight from servers on the Oceanic region.

https://twitter.com/ProfZachy/status/1375446034801905665?s=20

#ThankYouEpicGames steals the show

It’s not the first time Epic’s battle royale has been called a ‘dead game’ by a long shot, and it’s not even the first time these two hashtags have dueled it out.

From looking at the tweets, the #ThankYouEpicGames side definitely won this round, especially considering a good number of the #ripfortnite tweets were actually pushing back against the hashtag.

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A search for the supportive tag reveals a ton of tweets remembering all the good times on the island from years past. Several people shared how Fortnite had positively impacted their lives since coming out, including Fortnite leaker HYPEX.

Like we said, with more tweets, and more people genuinely using the #ThankYouEpicGames hashtag as opposed to #ripfortnite, it’s safe to say the fans who haven’t given up on the battle royale took the W in this matchup.

It’s also worth pointing out that this crackdown on wagers isn’t even new like a lot of players seem to think. Betting on the outcome of matches or wagering is against the ToS, and has been for some time, Epic has just recently decided to start enforcing it.