Kentucky high schools ban \u201cviolent\u201d Fortnite from varsity esports events Epic GamesKentucky high schools have banned Fortnite from officially sanctioned varsity competitions, claiming the Battle Royale game and other shooters like it are \u201ctoo violent.\u201d Despite Fortnite\u2019s depictions of fantasy violence being far removed from reality, it seems that Epic\u2019s game has once again been deemed too much for young minds to handle by someone who doesn\u2019t quite understand it. The Kentucky High School Athletic Association has banned the game from all varsity competitions for being \u201ctoo violent,\u201d despite it being one of the most popular games in the 12-to-25-year-old age bracket. \u201cThere is no place for shooter games in our schools,\u201d comissioner Julian Tackett said in an email obtained by Kentucky.com. \u201cWe did not know about the addition and are strongly against it.\u201d While Fortnite is not as wildly popular as it once was, it\u2019s by no means slouching, often fighting for the top slot on Twitch and other streaming platforms. This is in addition to its presence as one of the top esports titles in the world, which PlayVS has offered to high school students around the country as an inter-mural competition. \u201cI want to personally assure you that we, along with the NFHS Network are proactively taking steps to have this decision reversed,\u201d Tackett said in the email. \u201cThere is no place for shooter games in our schools. This announcement was particularly troubling in that it came on the anniversary of one of Kentucky\u2019s darkest days, the Marshall County incident.\u201d Kentucky, like many states in the United States, has seen tragedy related to gun violence. The Marshall County incident in question saw two students killed and several injured in the 2018 shooting. He continued to say that any Kentucky school that was part of the Athletic Association was barred from playing in any official capacity, be it through their partner PlayVS, or any other organization. High school coaches seem to be okay with the ban, as the same article quoted Damian Layman of Boyle County High School\u2019s esports team. \u201cWhen you start getting into the shooter-style games, I believe there\u2019s a line,\u201d said Laymon. \u201cAt the high school level do you want to be a part of that?\u201d The organization voted to require the written approval of principals, superintendents, and parents before students are even allowed to play League of Legends, Riot\u2019s MOBA mega-hit. While LoL does have many depictions of violence, its mechanics are not defined as a shooter, and thus seem to have at least escaped an outright ban. PlayVS has yet to comment on the ban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kentucky high schools ban \u201cviolent\u201d Fortnite from varsity esports events Epic GamesKentucky high schools have banned Fortnite from officially sanctioned varsity competitions, claiming the Battle Royale game and other shooters like it are \u201ctoo violent.\u201d Despite Fortnite\u2019s depictions of fantasy violence being far removed from reality, it seems that Epic\u2019s game has once again been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}