Have you ever yelled at your children for spending too much time playing video games? Well, you might want to change your tune and help your kid compete for the chance to win the next Fortnite World Cup. On Sunday, 16-year-old Kyle Giersdorf won three million dollars at the inaugural video competition.
Fox News reports that he "16-year-old from Pennsylvania, Giersdorf plays for the e-sports team Sentinels and topped other professional 'Fortnite' players, coming in with 59 points, well ahead of second-place finisher Harrison 'Psalm' Chang, who had 33 points."
As explained by Entertainment.ie, "First and foremost, 'Fortnite' is a videogame. First released in 2017 by Epic Games, it's become something of a cultural phenomenon for its bright colours, its infectious dance emotes, and its use of in-game currency.
The videogame is split into three different modes - Save The World, Battle Royale and Creative.
But, as the gaming website notes, "Understanding how 'Fortnite' has become so popular, however, is a little bit more difficult. The game is very much geared towards younger people, as its age rating is 12 or older. On top of this, there's branded merchandise, there's YouTube streamers, there's the dance moves which have now been incorporated by pop acts, and there's licensing from consumer products - again, all aimed towards young people."
The new field of competition is known as "e-sports." The prize total was the largest for any e-sporting event ever.
Fox News reports that the event was held in New York City:
The event was held at New York's Arthur Ashe Stadium and was comprised of three separate tournaments, Solos, Duos and Pro-Am. According to PCMag, which cited data from Esportspedia, this event was Giersdorf's first big tournament, which came after Epic Games, "Fortnite's creator, lowered the age requirement to 13, down from 16.
A recent analysis of the budding industry predicts that the value of the total e-sports market will top one billion dollars by 2021.
via CNBC:
Research firms like Statista estimate that global revenues for the wildly popular, still nascent sector may even surpass that milestone this year — particularly because of the number of companies and investors getting in on the esports market. Estimates from Newzoo project that the global esports market will exceed $1.6 billion by 2021.