Fortnite World Cup – The Mega Event

The international Fortnite elite meets for the World Cup in New York. The event will set new records with $30 million in prize money and tens of thousands of spectators.

They know legendary tennis matches well enough in Flushing Meadows. At the weekend, however, thousands of eSports fans storm the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, where the US Open will start at the end of August.

The Fortnite World Championship from Friday to Sunday is supposed to surpass everything that has existed in eSports so far.

30 million dollars (26.8 million euros) will be distributed in prize money, and millions worldwide will probably watch the event as a live stream at home.

Game developer Epic Games promised in a message the “biggest tournament of all times”, of the originally “40 million participating players” the “Duo- and Solo-Champions shall be crowned” in New York.

The crowd seems huge, with around 24,000 spectators fitting into the arena.

Fortnite became famous through its “Battle Royale” mode

100 players jump over an island with a glider. There they collect weapons, equipment and raw materials and then try to eliminate their enemies.

The playable area gets smaller and smaller due to the so-called storm – a glowing blue circle, which gets closer and closer and causes damage to the players outside. This drives the opponents to each other. Whoever survives, in the end, wins the round.

In the World Cup, the pros play several rounds in which they collect points. These are available for shooting down and placing. That’s how the qualification went, in which according to Epic Games millions of players tried their hand.

In total, the game has 250 million registered users, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney said in an interview with the blog network Engadget. Especially for young people, Fortnite is therefore increasingly becoming a social network in which they can play together and talk to each other.

According to Nielsen SuperData analysts, the company earned 203 million dollars with the game on May 2019 alone. Last year’s total earnings were estimated at 2.4 billion dollars.

Epic Games earns money mainly with in-game purchases

Players can buy the virtual currency V-Bucks (9.99 Euro for 1000 V-Bucks) to unlock content – for example, new outfits for game characters or funny dances such as the famous “Floss Dance”, which footballers now also like to perform during goal celebrations.

New content such as outfits, weapons and larger events are added almost weekly. One of these events was a concert by DJ Marshmello, which was (pre-recorded) broadcast in the game.

Marshmello will also be at the World Cup: Before the best players play for the titles in the solo and duo competition on Saturday and Sunday, there will be a kind of show match on Friday, in which well-known streamers and pro players will compete in the team together with stars.

Turner “Tfue” Tenney, one of the most famous Fortnite players along with Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, will also be there.

Tfue, who streams his game almost daily on the Twitch platform for between six and eight hours, will compete together with rapper and music producer Nav.