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Fortnite hits 125m players, Epic announces plans for $100m tournament

Fortnite hits 125m players, Epic announces plans for $100m tournament

Epic has laid out plans for its $100 million Fortnite Battle Royale competitive season just as the game surpasses more than 125 million players.

The developer aims to support community-organised and professional events all around the world, including those taking place online.

Road to the finals

Qualifiers for the Fortnite World Cup 2019 will begin in autumn 2018 and focus on solo and duo matches. Epic noted however there would be “plenty of opportunities to squad-up in competition too”.

Epic will be splitting its $100 million prize pool between a number of events.

The developer currently has no plans to sell teams or franchises, nor will it allow third-party leagues to do this. Rather, qualification for the World Cup will simply be based on player performance.

The move is in contrast to Blizzard’s highly successful Overwatch League which has formed a lucrative esports competition by selling team franchises.

 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.