So far, Fridays belonged to the tournament “Friday Fortnite” hosted by a well-known YouTuber. The prize pool was $20,000. That was the maximum the organizer could offer. Now, however, Epic is pushing in with its official tournament and a lot of money, $500,000, on Fridays. This bothers the previous frontrunner.
How was it before? Fortnite has been a massive game for months, but there was no eSports scene: There was huge demand, but no supply. That’s why the popular yet controversial YouTube figure “Keemstar” teamed up with the eSports company, UMG, to host his own weekly tournament: the “Friday Fortnite,” an unofficial community tournament.
Here, stars of Fortnite like Ninja played for a prize pool of $20,000. The tournament was well received by the Fortnite community. Regularly, 600,000 people tuned in to watch.
Fortnite Friday, make way – we want the Friday
How is it now? Now Epic Games has announced its own tournament: the Summer Skirmish Series. In the first week, when the tournament flopped catastrophically, they only occupied Saturday. But now Epic has claimed both Friday and Saturday as tournament days. And apparently, this has not been communicated very well.
Keemstar cancels his tournament: The previous organizer Keemstar actually wanted to hold a tournament this Friday. However, he has now canceled it quite dismissively. He claims he learned about Epic’s plans only at the last minute.
Epic lures my players away with money and I can no longer offer them anything
Epic has poached 5 of his players on Thursday. He still wanted to hold his tournament. But now they have invited all his players to play on Friday. Epic is offering a prize pool of $500,000, while they limited the prize pool for his “Friday Fortnite” tournament to $20,000. He says he is not holding any players back.
This is what Epic says: Epic stated to the US site Kotaku that they had already informed Keemstar in advance that they might need Friday as well. While they did limit the prize pool from Keemstar to $20,000, that is already twice as much as what they allow other providers.
Future community tournaments on Sunday
What happens next? Keemstar will likely move to Sunday, while Epic Games focuses on their tournaments on Friday and Saturday. However, the eSports company UMG is withdrawing from Keemstar’s tournament. So the question remains how that will proceed.
Fans disappointed: Fans of Friday Fortnite are quite disappointed (via reddit). They feel that Epic is ruining something “good.”
The spicy part: Keemstar already had a functioning tournament format that many viewers enjoyed. Epic is still searching for such a format for eSports in Fortnite. The spicy part is that Epic determines how much other organizers can max offer – in Keemstar’s case $20,000. They themselves do not have such limits and offer 25 times the prize money.
