Fortnite just got $100 million in prize pool money to venture into eSports

Epic Games

• Gaming phenomenon Fortnite just received $100 million in prize pool money from Epic Games to fuel its venture into competitive gaming.
• The sum is a large one for the world of eSports.

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Fortnite, the largest and most popular free-to-play game in the world right now, just got $100 million in prize pool money to venture into eSports.

The investment made by Epic Games, the developer behind Fortnite, means that $100 million will fund the prize pools for Fortnite competitions, which will kick off later this year. As far as competitive gaming goes, that prize pool is a large one. But it makes sense for a gaming phenomenon that rakes in $223 million a month, according to SuperData.

In a blog post on the Epic Games website, the Fortnite Team wrote, "We're getting behind competitive play in a big way, but our approach will be different - we plan to be more inclusive, and focused on the joy of playing and watching the game."

With Fortnite's already wild success, along with such a large sum for prize money, the game will likely prove to be a big player in eSports.

Besides Fortnite's flashy new prize pool, the largest sum provided for competitive gaming prizes is DotA 2's eSports tournament, The International, which had a comfortable $23 million pool last year according to ESPN.

Fortnite's Battle Royale mode currently has about 45 million people playing across a wide range of devices, including PlayStation 4, Xbox, PCs and Macs, and iPhones. It's coming to Android phones later this summer. It's also completely free.