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It’s really cool and all that Fortnite Battle Royale is now on iOS, but for teachers, it’s a nightmare. There may not be much for teachers to do to get their students from playing during class, beyond collecting and banning iPhones from their classrooms — but at least Epic Games is doing its part to help, even a tiny bit, as seen in Battle Royale’s latest update.
A loading screen for the mobile version features this text right below that colorful llama: “Mr. Hillman says stop playing in class.” Who’s Mr. Hillman? He’s a teacher, Reddit user and Fortnite fan, who took to the game’s forum this week to ask the developer for help.
“First, I love your game,” Hillman wrote on the Battle Royale forum. (The post has since been deleted, as users warned him against attaching his actual name to his Reddit account.) “My friends from college and I play pretty much every night. One problem, since mobile came out my students won’t stop playing in class. Idk if it’s possible, but I told them I’d write you and they didn’t believe me. Could you add this to the loading screen for a couple days to mess with them? ‘Mr. Hillman says stop playing in class.’”
Well, Epic Games was paying attention — the studio is super active in the Fortnite Reddit community — and now the game says exactly that when you load it up.
My favorite thing about working at @EpicGames.
— K.L. Smith (@arCtyC) March 30, 2018
#MrHillman #Fortnite pic.twitter.com/fnnOs1EZSD
Whether or not that’s actually going to be effective in getting kids to stop secretly playing under their desks ... all I can say is that I wish Mr. Hillman luck.