Fortnite was bound to have a thriving esports presence because it’s the biggest game in the world. There’s usually a direct correlation between esports popularity and general popularity. But Epic is making an investment to ensure competitive Fortnite players don’t wander off to new games anytime soon.
Epic is dedicating $100 million to Fortnite‘s prize pool in 2019. A crisp $30 million of that is allocated toward the Fortnite World Cup which takes place in late July. Two hundred players will compete in the World Cup (100 solos and 50 duos teams), and everyone will earn a minimum of $50,000. The Solo Champion will take home $3,000,000.
The remaining $70 million is split up between smaller-but-more-frequent events. For instance, there are World Cup qualifiers every week between April 13 and June 16; each of those has a prize pool of $1 million. There are other weekly cash tournaments throughout the year that each have their own $1 million prize pool.
It’s a crazy chunk of dough, but this is the exact sort of thing Fortnite‘s popularity makes possible. Epic has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on a monthly basis ever since blew up. Last summer, Epic shifted its Unreal Engine Marketplace profit sharing so that creators earn 88 percent of sales instead of 70 percent; Epic said it was a direct result of Fortnite‘s success. Now the players have the opportunity to make a lot more money too.
Fortnite World Cup Details and $100,000,000 Competitive Prize Pool for 2019 [Epic Games]
Source: Destructoid Epic goes all #1 Stunna by dropping 0 million on Fortnite esports