The professional e-sports athlete Harrison “Psalm” Chang earned $1.8 million by playing Fortnite: Battle Royale when he became world champion runner-up in 2019. He now announces his retirement. He will play the new shooter from Riot Games, Valorant. He sees great potential here.
This is Psalm: The American Harrison “Psalm” Chang (25) is an interesting figure in the e-sports scene, as he was a successful player for over 3.5 years in a relatively unsuccessful e-sports title.
The e-sports in Blizzard’s MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, never brought Psalm much money. In the first 3.5 years as an e-sports athlete from 2014 to 2018, Psalm earned about $80,000 (via esportsearnings).
Psalm switched to Fortnite in 2018, just before Blizzard announced it would significantly reduce e-sports in Heroes of the Storm. In Fortnite, Psalm saw great potential.
Psalms’ shining moment came at the Fortnite World Championship in the summer of 2019. He finished second in the solo tournament, behind Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, and earned $1.8 million at once, of which he had to pay a lot in taxes.
At the Fortnite World Championship, Psalm, at 24 years old, was well above the average age of the participants of 16. One of the players was even only 13. Psalm acted like the big brother of the other participants.
Much confidence in Riot and Valorant
This is what Psalm says now: Psalm announced on Sunday that he is quitting Fortnite and will now play Valorant.
His goal is to become one of the most awarded competitors in e-sports history. He thanks Fortnite for everything they have enabled. But he wants to be part of Valorant now, as he tells ESPN:
- Valorant will be “the next gaming titan”
- the game will have “the largest and most diverse pool of talent” ever seen
- Psalm believes that Riot will manage to build a stable competitive scene. He wants to be a part of that
Fortnite turns off the money tap for e-sports
What’s behind it: The e-sports of Fortnite has been struggling since the World Championship in the summer of 2019. Epic Games is having a hard time establishing Fortnite as an e-sport. Although they pumped enormous amounts of prize money into the game in 2019, it didn’t really help much. The World Championship and the large prize money couldn’t prevent the viewership of Fortnite on Twitch from declining in 2019.
There were some issues:
- for example, Fortnite was only watched during the qualifying matches for the World Championship and was otherwise relatively dead
- furthermore, pros continually criticized Epic for changing the game too much – this is not acceptable for an e-sport title
- there seemed to be aconstant conflict about whether Fortnite is now a “serious title” for the pros, where skill is everything, or a “fun” title for everyone, where everyone has a chance to win, and luck plays a larger role
After the Fortnite World Championship in the summer of 2019, the e-sports program of Fortnite was significantly scaled back and has not yet fully resumed.
Professional players criticize the lack of support and communication from Epic towards the pros and e-sports teams. Recently, several teams have disbanded, and veterans have announced their retirements. Before Psalm, Liquid Poach had already stated that he is switching to Valorant.
Fortnite still does not seem suitable as an e-sport title for many players in 2020. The tournaments are played online and there are always irregularities, leading to bans.
A Fortnite player recently caught himself cheating live on Twitch.
