Epic Games announced today that it will provide $100 million in prize pool money for Fortnite e-sports competitions in the first year of competitive play
That's A LOT of money when it comes to e-sports! Official Fortnite competitions are starting up later this year.
Epic's website states:
“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. Stay tuned for more details about competitive structures and eligible platforms in the weeks ahead.”
A lot of details are TBA, but we can only imagine how intense that tournament will be.
Other video game tournaments, such as those geared around Valve's Dota 2 has paid out over $140 million to players. Counter-Strike: GO has paid over $50 million.
Fortnite is a battle royale game that's free for players. The company makes money when players buy game upgrades like in-game costumes and custom winning actions like dance moves. The company made a whopping $126 million in the month of February just from these upgrades! According to Sensor Tower, Epic games is raking in over $1 million a day, just from Fortnite on mobile alone. One thing to point out, the popularity has only increased since then now that the game has been released for iOS.