Meet the teenager who just won $3-million playing Fortnite
“It’s insane,” said Kyle Giersdorf, the 16year-old winner of the first Fortnite World Champion. The young gamer from Pennsylvania was commenting on just being told he had won $3-million in prize money.
Giersdorf took the lead in the series over the first six games and then became almost unstoppable. In the final, he scored almost double the points of his closest opponent (59 to 33).
Bugha was ruthlessly consistent all the way through the World Championships. The tournament took place at Arthur Ashe stadium in front of a crowd of tens-of-thousands and streamed live to an audience of millions.
"This morning he was worriless, energetic, having fun to make sure he wasn't stressed at all," his best friend, Colin Bradley told reporters after the final.
"He's one of the smartest players. He knows when to attack, when not to attack, to stay high ground. He's a strategic player," Bradley said.
Epic Games – the developers of Fortnite – have spent $100-million on the inaugural event, including staging ten weeks of qualifying games.
Over the 3-day Fortnite World Championships, Epic Games gave out $30-million in prize money (every competitor was guaranteed to leave with at least $50,000).
On Saturday, ‘Nyhrox’ and ‘aqua’ became the first Fortnite millionaires, making $1.5-million each in the Duo division.
Then yesterday, four more players joined the millionaire tables, including ‘Bugha’, ‘Psalm’ ($1.8-million), ‘Epikwhale’ ($1.2 million), and ‘Kreo’ ($1.5 million).
