Before Fortnite went BR, Resistance & Killzone were already done. SOCOM and Warhawk/Starhawk were super extra dead due to Lightbox and Zipper closing, Halo was walking dead with Halo 5, and the developers of Battlefield had "no idea why players liked Bad Company 2", leading to the franchise being on life support.
People idolized rock and pop stars in the 80s/90s and there was shitty rock music alongside the good ones just like there's shitty rap music alongside the good ones today. And you're talking about weed skins as if weed wasn't huge in the 80s/90s to distract people from the US crack epidemic of the <checks notes> 80s and 90s lol.