CAMP MIXES VIDEO GAMES WITH ... YOGA?
On a sunny Thursday afternoon, a block from one of the prettiest stretches of beach on the East Coast, two dozen middle-school boys are huddled inside a room packed with video monitors that rattle with high-powered weaponry and glow with the transfixing chaos of the massively popular game Fortnite.
Their parents wouldn’t have it any otherway.
The boys are part of the inaugural eSports Club Fortnite Summer Camp, a first-of-its-kind program created by Fort Lauderdale resident Tommy Knapp, a longtime South Florida sports executive and youth-sports organizer. Knapp believes that competitive video gaming, known as eSports, and the professional and educational opportunities they offer are changing rapidly, and gamers must change with them.
“Your mindset is a kid alone in his room or in the basement eating Doritos or Cheetos, and drinking Pepsi, you know.
All of it seems kind of toxic,” Knapp says. “Iwant a holistic approach.”
While there are four to five hours of gaming each day at the weeklong camp in Fort Lauderdale’s North Beach Village— a professional player streams in for an hour to coach the campers on Fortnite strategy— Knapp has physical trainer Geoff Thomas of Outback Fitness lead the kids through a 45-minute workout each day. There is swimming, stretching and yoga. There is discussion of proper nutrition, mental fitness and healthy gaming habits. And there is mentoring on career opportunities and eSports college scholarships.
With a resume that includes positions with the Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers, Fort Lauderdale Strikers and the Miami Marlins, Knapp nowis all in on eSports. He just resigned as a corporate marketing manager for the Marlins to run the Fortnite camp.
“This ismy day job now,” Knapp says with a laugh on Thursday. “Yesterday was my last day [with the Marlins].”
The Fortnite boom
Released in September by Epic Games, Fortnite: Battle Royale, as it is more formally known, is a multiplayer game in which100 players dropped on an island search for guns and other weapons as they fight to be the lone survivor. Friends can drop in together, form alliances and create strategies as they compete against some of the 125million other players from around the globe.
The game has had plenty of youth-culture moments recently. Pop DJ Marshmello and topranked Fortnite streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins this month won $1 million for charity in the inaugural Fortnite Celebrity Pro AM tournament held in Los Angeles during the Electronic Entertainment Expo. In March, Ninja broke a record for most viewed Twitch stream while playing Fortnite with rappers Drake and Travis Scott.
Boston Red Sox pitcher David Price made headlines this season when Fortnite was suspected for the carpal-tunnel diagnosis that put him on the disabled list.
Key to the game’s popularity is that it is free to play and available on a smartphone, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Also important is that Epic Games is constantly refreshing the game with new graphics and features.
While free to battle, players have the option of paying to customize a character with special outfits and other visual flourishes, and can unlock rewards by purchasing a Battle Pass.
Fortnite posted revenues of $318 million in May, a monthly record for any video game and exceeding the best month for Pokemon Go by more than $100 million, according to Business Insider, citing SuperData Research. Since its debut, Fortnite has made more than $1.2 billion.
A new reality
The eSports Club Fortnite Summer Camp runs 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily in a makeshift space at the North Beach Village Resort Design Art Gallery, where surrealist paintings and photography go unnoticed as the sound of gunfire and the boys’ enthusiastic yelps bounce off the walls.
Knapp treated the first twoweeks of camp as a beta version, with no marketing, just word of mouth. The firstweek, which began June18, was intended for his son Zane and a couple of friends, but he had nine kids showup. He had15 campers sign up for the second week, which began Monday, but ended up with 26.
“Every day, I’d get another parent calling me, saying they’d heard about a Fortnite camp,” Knapp says as he and two counselors put extra monitors in place.
Knapp says he’s about to add a downtown location in FAT Village, at 101SE Third Ave. He’s planning five more week long sessions beginning July 9. Each session costs $295.
There isn’t just one type of kid to be found at the Fortnite camp, where the ages range from8 to 13.
Rayne Archuleta, 10, spends most of his time playing soccer as a member of the elite Paris Saint-Germain Academy Florida. The10-year-old student at Virginia Shuman Young Elementary School has only been playing Fortnite for a fewweeks, and said the campwas a great place to learn and make new friends.
“In the middle of games, people will cheer you on. If you’re at your house, you’re just sitting in your room by yourself,” he says.
Nico Ward, a personable 13-year-old at St Mark's Episcopal School, attended with his brother, Noah, 10. A longtime Fortnite player, Nico also enjoys the sense of community he found in playing the game with people he can talk to and see.
“You can actually look over and see them in reality, and it’s really nice just to be connected to reality and disconnected at the same time, because you’re so used to being disconnected,” Nico says, postworkout sweat dripping down his face.
Fortnite Dynamite
Knapp is “not a gun guy” and understands the antipathy toward so-called shooter games and the soundtrack of gunfire in Fortnite, especially in South Florida in the wake of the Parkland massacre. But the game is not what it might seem fromthe sound, he says.
Like the cartoonish sci-fi of “Star Wars,” the battles in Fortnite are not graphic, and there is no blood. Characters who are eliminated from the game are removed in a celestial beam of light.
And much of it is just goofy fun, Nico Ward says.
“My mom’s not too fond of shooter games … but Fortnite, I feel, is different,” Nico says. “Where in Call of Duty would you find a disco ball that you throwat people and it makes them dance? You’re not going to find that in Call of Duty, or any other game. It’s just great originality.”
Nico’s mother, Trinity Ward, did have reservations about allowing her two sons to play the game, but no more.
“Since they’ve started playing, I’ve noticed they have gotten along better than they ever have. Sowe started watching them play Fortnite,” Ward says. “Yes, it’s a shooting game, but it’s also extremely entertaining. I noticed they were learning strategy and creativity, and theywere communicating with each other. I thought, ‘There’s something to this.’ ”
She also points out that there is a subversive humor in the game clearly aimed at an older audience. For instance, one of the dances that result from the thrown disco ball (called a Boogie Bomb in the game) is fromthe cult comedy “Napoleon Dynamite.”
Ward says that’s an indication that Fortnite was designed for parents towatch, perhaps even play with their kids. Ward and her husband are teaching themselves the game now.
“Tommy [Knapp] is going to help me. He said I can stop by camp any time,” Ward says, laughing. “My kids are a little bit mortified.”
The eSports Club Fortnite Summer Camp takes place at the North Beach Village Resort DesignArt Gallery, 600 Breakers Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. Hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, with pickup until 6 p.m. A downtown Fort Lauderdale location is expected to be added at 101 SE Third Ave. The camp costs $295 per week. For information, call 954-829-9213 or go to