Fortnite’s $100m lure
Just when you thought you might get your children back ...
THE world’s best Fortnite players will be competing for $100 million in prizes.
Epic, who make the hugely popular battle royale game, have announced they will throw themselves behind Fortnite competitions.
The fund will make the game easily one of the highest-paying eSports titles.
The official Fortnite competitions are expected to launch this year. But other than that, Epic revealed few details.
It is not even clear whether Epic will run one big Fortnite competition or would concentrate on smaller matches.
It did however stress that its approach to the competitive matches would ensure that the games stayed fun and that they would be “inclusive”.
While the huge prize fund will make Fortnite players better rewarded than any other – $100 million is approaching the total prize money given out for DOTA 2 over the last five years – the money is unlikely to trouble developers Epic.
Rumours suggest the company is making more than $1 million a day from its mobile version of the game alone.
Fortnite is ostensibly free but encourages players to buy add-ons and other upgrades.
Meanwhile, a study of 858 parents of children who play Fortnite shows 54 per cent are concerned about the negative effects of the game.
In particular, the average family polled endures 11 arguments a month because children want to spend more time playing the survival shoot-outs.
And 63 per cent of parents find themselves “arguing constantly” about the attitude they receive when asking the child to come off the game.
Other common fights are about how much time is spent playing (54 per cent), the amount of money spent on ingame purchases (39 per cent) and general bad attitude.
However, just under half of parents like the fact the game is sociable, while 43 per cent say it’s nice to see their children so animated and excited about something.
Of the 46 per cent of parents who think the game has had a positive influence, 52 per cent like the fact their children have made new friends online and 31 per cent think they’ve become more confident since playing.
UPPING THE STAKES: Epic, the company behind the hugely successful game Fortnite, has announced $100 million in prizes for players.