B&D heads to NYC for the Fortnite World Cup

We’ve just come back from spending time in NYC for the Fortnite World Cup. As far as the esports scale goes, this was huge. The tournament had $30 million in prize money at stake, and its winner walked away with £3 million (£2.4m). That’s more than the singles winners at Wimbledon took home this year.

Esports, if you need a refresher, is simply a form of competition using video games. As esports grows, companies have started designing their games to work well competitively, even including things like spectator modes for commentators to use when broadcasting.

If you had any doubt about the scale and importance of gaming, events like these should confirm it. We heard about a relatively informal meet up with esports team Faze Clan and, upon going to see what the set up was like, we found queues 5-8 people deep, running the full perimeter of two whole city blocks.

Roll your eyes about nerds taking over, worry about lost childhoods and square eyes but ultimately esports is showing itself to be as serious a pursuit as working to be a pro tennis player.