Montco teen wins $3M as Fortnite champ
Pottsgrove student Kyle Giersdorf lived out a fantasy for many teenagers around the world Sunday night.
Giersdorf is a 16-year-old student at Pottsgrove High School who plays video games professionally under the name “Bugha.”
Playing against 99 of the other top players in the world, Geirsdorf won the first ever Fortnite World Cup Finals and the $3 million prize that came with it Sunday at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.
“Words can’t explain it,” Giersdorf told the Associated Press after the event.
Fortnite is an online video game, which was released in 2017. As of March, there were as many as 250 million Fortnite players. The game’s Battle Royale pits 100 participants together where the players fight off each other until there is one left standing.
The Fortnite World Cup was an open competition, hosted by the game’s creator Epic Games, where more than 40 million players competed for 10 weeks, starting in April, with the goal of getting into this weekend’s finals in New York City.
Giersdorf, who is a member of the Sentinels’ Los Angeles-based esports organization, and 99 others competed in six matches with the prize of $3 million on the line.
The Pottsgrove native won in dominant fashion, totaling 59
points compared to 33 for second-place finisher Harrison “Psalm” Chang.
“Today was indeed the day,” Giersdorf’s Twitter account tweeted Sunday night.
Giersdorf had earned himself some notoriety in the gaming community prior to the event. He streams his videogaming on the site Twitch, where others can see him play. His Twitch, Twitter, YouTube and twitch accounts all had tens of thousands of followers prior to Sunday.
Sunday’s win put him in an even bigger spotlight.
Giersdorf’s Twitch account was up to more than 150,000 followers by Monday afternoon. His YouTube channel had more than 230,000 subscribers, and his Twitter account had climbed to more than 226,000 followers.
“Bugha” even got a personal shoutout from one of the most popular videogame streamers in the world, Ninja, after the win.
“Congrats to the best solo player in the world, and it’s not even close,” Ninja tweeted with a picture of himself and Giersforf late Sunday night.