Fortnite opens its $100 million war chest - first official esports tournament arrives

Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite - the little known indie game that absolutely no one is playing - has revealed that its first proper esports tournament comes complete with a grand prize of $8 million. 

Now, $8 million is a lot of money. But it’s a mere dint in the $100 million kitty Epic Games has set aside for a number of tournaments over the next few years, which shows just how much excitement there is around this game. 

In order to jumpstart the competition, according to Epic Games, invitations have already been sent for the tournament and the participants will be made up of community and Fortnite players. 

Changing format

When it comes to the format of the competition, well this is set to change week to week, as are the competitors. 

In all there will be an 8-week series of competitions, with the first being a $250,000 Duos competition. 

Some of the confirmed players, according to Dexerto, include OpTic Gaming content creator Jack 'CouRage' Dunlop and OpTic pro 'BaldyKun', Twitch streamer Valkrae, Team Liquid pro players 'Chaps' and '72hrs' and more. 

Epic Games originally trialled an esports tournament at this year’s E3, where celebrities and pro gamers battles it out for a charity prize bundle of $3 million.

A stadium was filled for the final and, at one point, 700,000 concurrent people were watching the Twitch stream.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.

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