By Harper Johnson & Max Rizzi ’19
If you go anywhere in the Boys Division during the day, whether it be the hallways, cafeteria, library, and even classrooms, you will find students focused intently, not on studies, but on Rules of Survival. It is a game where you can play with a team, or by yourself against hundreds of other players across the world on a massive island map.
It is a Battle Royale game which is a kind of cross between Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty online, two of the highest grossing video games in the United States.
“I like to play because it’s a good way to pass time and play with all my friends because we can play together against the world while just chilling in class,” Junior Riley Kraus said.
Since the game was released for public beta in November of 2017, it has exploded in popularity, helping the developer, NetEase, earn net revenues of $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017 alone, up 20.7% from the fourth quarter of 2016. And during Q4 of 2017 it was the top downloaded mobile game.
Rules of Survival is here to stay, with a 4.5/5 star rating on the App Store and millions of downloads worldwide.