Epic Games to provide $100 million prize pool for Fortnite esports this year
Developer promises a different, "more inclusive" approach with tournament details to follow in the coming weeks
Fortnite has spent months dominating online discussions, Twitch streams, and even students' attention spans; now, Epic Games wants to tackle esports. Today, the developer announced that it would provide a grandiose prize pool of $100 million across a 2018-2019 competitive season for Fortnite esports.
Though the specifics of how that money would be distributed across what types of events was not specified, Epic Games hinted that something non-traditional was in the cards. In its announcement, Epic Games said, "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."
$100 million is an astronomical amount of prize money for esports. As scene veteran Scott "SirScoots" Smith pointed out on Twitter, this is larger than the top ten esports prize pools of 2017 combined. This investment doesn't specifically include (though it is likely connected with) Tencent's plans to specifically grow the Chinese esports industry to be worth ¥100 billion by 2022, supported by the company's $15 million investment in Fortnite.
Further details about Epic Games' plans for competition and which platforms will be eligible will be revealed in the coming weeks.