After announcing Fortnite Android will have a summer release date, Epic Games has revealed a $100 million prize pool for the first year of Fortnite e-sports tournaments. To put that into perspective, the year one prize pool for Fortnite is more than every major e-sport put together in 2017. This includes the likes of heavyweights like Call of Duty, Halo 5, Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Rocket League, PUBG, and StarCraft to name a few. What this also means, is that Epic Games is serious about Fortnite's e-sports potential.
"Grab your gear, drop in and start training. Since the launch of Fortnite Battle Royale we’ve watched the passion for community competition grow and can’t wait to empower you to battle with the best. In the 2018 - 2019 season, Epic Games will provide $100,000,000 to fund prize pools for Fortnite competitions. We’re getting behind competitive play in a big way, but our approach will be different - we plan to be more inclusive, and focused on the joy of playing and watching the game," a post from the company reads.
There's no mention of eligible platforms just yet, though we won't be surprised to see it restricted to consoles and PC for the first year before moving it over to iOS and Android later on. Expect Epic to confirm this in the weeks ahead. Considering it has a presence at E3 2018, we could see more details drop then.
It's an interesting turn of events considering that the battle royale genre hasn't been taken seriously by many an e-sports organiser just yet. In fact, PUBG's tournaments in India are restricted to solely online play due to the costs involved. That said, the fact that Epic is willing to put that much money on the table is bound to ensure the battle royale genre as a whole takes off in a big way.
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