In a very simple announcement, Epic Games is now letting the world know that they are now supporting the esports side of its multi-million dollar hit game Fortnite. Starting in the 2018-2019 season, Epic will foot in a whopping $100,000,000 USD worth of prize pool to support the first year of competitive play.
“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,” said Epic on its blog post.
That’s one hundred million dollars. To put in perspective, The International, the biggest tournament in Dota 2 (and all of esports as of now) has the record of providing $24,787,916 USD in prize pool for last year’s edition. Epic’s prize pool money is to be spent for a year worth of tournaments, and even then it’s not hard to see that they have the figures to top that record total prize pool in one premier tournament alone.
Fortnite itself has yet to position itself as an esport just yet, most tournaments are community-run with some support by Epic. By that nine-figure prize pool number, this should lead to a huge interest for budding players to strive more for those Victory Royales.
Source: Epic Games via Dot Esports