Without ever winning one of the six challenges played, the very young Bugha wins the first world tournament of Fortnite and takes home 3 million dollars
His name is Kyle Giersdorf, but online he calls himself "Bugha", he comes from Pennsylvania and yesterday he earned 3 million dollars. At 16 years old. Bugha is the first solo Fortnite tournament champion in the world. The pairs final was won on Saturday by "Nyhrox" and "aqua", who took home 1.5 million each.
An aunt calls Kyle a true professional and, given how much he won yesterday at Arthur Ashe Stadium, you'd better believe it. But since we are talking about eSports, it is good to point out that Bugha is not the number 1 in the world: in the global ranking he is only tenth, in the US ranking he is second after UNiVeRsE (Saahil Arora). But with 59 points in total, Bugha tore up the tournament's runner-up, 24-year-old Harrison Chang, aka "Psalm", who with 33 points cries with one eye only because he takes home $1.8 million in prize money. Closing the podium is "EpikWhale", who takes home 1.2 million dollars but has something to complain about (or cheer, you choose the lexical): he finished with 32 points.
Winning is not everything
As they say, the good horse is seen over the long haul: in one match Bugha was eliminated almost immediately, but the sum of his placements allowed him to accumulate points over the course of four other matches. Finally, several eliminations during five of the six total matches worked in his favor. But, at the end of the day, Bugha won the tournament without winning any matches.
Fortnite World Cup: a 100 million tournament
Epic Games, software house that developed Fortnite, spent a whopping $100 million to organize the tournament in which, in the first phase of online qualification, nearly 40 million players from around the world participated. Among them, only 100 managed to qualify for the final stages of the tournament, those that took place in New York. Epic Games has given out 30 million dollars in prizes to the various participants, with a minimum of 50 thousand dollars.
Prizes and controversy
With the average age of the players (Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf has yet to finish school), many are wondering how ethical it is to allow minors to take home millions of dollars. Doubts reinforced by the recent news of the temporary abandonment of Fortnite by Ninja: the famous streamer (who in June missed the qualification to the final stages of the tournament) would seem to have serious problems with his right eye. How much of these problems are related to spending dozens of hours a week in front of the screen, however, is unknown.