Kentucky high school athlete organization is banned Fortnite from varsity esports among its members, calling the shooters' games inappropriate for the school environment and saying its esports partner never contacted their superiors before adding it this season.
Lexington Herald-Leader reported on Monday that the commissioner of the Kentucky High School Athletic Association emailed school officials this weekend, concerning the news that national esports partner, PlayVS, they would start offering Fortnite in the tournament. "There is no place for shooting games in our schools," wrote Julian Tackett, KSAA commissioner.
Tackett told KHSAA members that he and other officials & # 39; ve not aware of the addition of PlayVS Fortnite on the plus line League of Legends, Rocket League and Call. League of Legends and Call arenas multiplayer online battlefields, or MOBAs, as well Rocket League difference in football played with cars.
Joe Angolia, KHSAA's director of communications and esports communications told Polygon that his organization only read Fortnite
PlayVS and Epic Games announced their partnership on Jan. 22, claiming they created the first Fortnite supports a league of college and high school competitors. The Washington Post reported later that PlayVS is processing Fortnite competitions to be a "national league league" whose participating schools are "separated from their state entities."
"We will have to struggle to get esports right now," Angolia told Polygon. & # 39; We had people who were concerned about the games we were offering, and whether it was appropriate for schools. After that we (…) worked with our partners, and our schools, and worked with the (state) Department of Education here in Kentucky, and the Center for School Safety, to find out.
Angolia said: “We felt we were in a good mood and now the announcement has done that good.”
Polygon reached out to a PlayVS representative for comment. PlayVS, launched in 2017, offers a key solution for converting high schools looking for esports teams. Players pay a fee ($ 64 per season, and there are two periods during the school year) for participation. League of Legends
Tackett, according to the Herald-Leader, told school officials that the National Federation of State High School Association Network (NFHS) was "taking drastic measures to back the decision." Angolia told Polygon that KHSAA was in a contract with PlayVS, but did not know how long that contract was. Eighteen other high school sports organizations are affiliated with PlayVS, working with NFHS.
The Washington Post, which also found Tackett's email, he said to write it down FortniteThe addition "violates a contract signed by PlayVS and NFHS … and endangers the program's future."
As for Kentucky member schools, the reaction "is rampant across the board," Angolia said. "Some want to do it, but as long as we let you know, and we won't accept it," he said. "Most of the kids were good at it, because it's so popular."
Angolia said she understood that Fortnite it's not an inappropriate game because of its T-Te-Teen limitations, gunplay is very cartoonish, and that it gets students to participate in extracurricular activities. However, "the fact that we were not allowed to do our due diligence and talk to our partners, to take the steps we needed to take to make this happen, that's a problem."
In an email reported by the Herald-Leader, Tackett said it was extremely worrying that the shooting game would provoke this kind of controversy so close to the two-year anniversary of the Marshall County High School shooting near Benton, Kentucky. . On Jan. 23, 2018, a 15-year-old student killed two classmates and injured 12 others in a gun attack.
Angolia said the unfortunate moment was for another reason: the Kentucky state championship Rocket League and League of Legends tomorrow University of Kentucky college. "We have this kind of hanging on the line for all this stuff and we are throwing a cloud," he said.
