What if I told you that as many as 8.8 million unique viewers were watching the same Fortnite competition every Friday.
And that it wasn't even run by Fortnite developer Epic Games, but by an unaffiliated YouTuber.
"Why hello there my name is Keemstar."
And just recently, Epic pledged to sink $100,000,000 into the upcoming season.
Birthing the Fornite World Cup sometime in the future and the 8-week Fornite Summer Skirmish.
Whether it’s esports or not this shit is popping off.
Fortnite Friday answered one of the big questions that everyone had when Fornite exploded into mainstream relevance just a few months ago.
How are they going to make this interesting to watch?
Unlike other attempts at Battle Royale esports, Fortnite Fridays has placed the emphasis on two things — streamers and kills.
"Excuse me?"
The whole thing feels just as much like a reality show as it does a major esports event.
There's as much focus on the memes, the highlight plays and the spectacle that Fortnite has become on Twitch as there is on who wins and who loses.
(Casting)
Which, is probably where all the “Fornite’s not an esport” cries are coming from.
But, the answer to that question doesn’t really matter.
The bottom line is that people are competing, and millions of eyes are on them.
Problem number one with Battle Royale esports is the logistical nightmare with getting 100 people in a room, physically or virtually to battle to the death.
The second big problem, is how you make that interesting for viewers without boring them to death or giving them a seizure.
(Casting)
What popular Youtuber Keemstar and UMG have done with Fortnite Fridays is tune the focus of their broadcast away
from the highest tiers of competitive integrity and toward action and entertainment.
Here’s how it works. During Fornite Fridays, two teams of two join a four person squads and battle it out.
The team with the most eliminations moves on in the bracket.
And every team MUST stream the matches to ensure competitive integrity, and well, viewership numbers.
Gone are the problems with turtling-up in one-by-one structures and playing riskless Fortnite. This format is about lethality.
"Stay on me."
"I headshotted him with a no-scope."
(Casting)
But it’s not just Keemstar trying to make the competitive side of Fortnite work.
Fornite’s esports origin story starts in the same place that almost everything important about Fortnite starts from.
Ninja.
Ninja hosted his own event, Ninja Vegas at the Esports Arena in Las Vegas.
The event broke Ninja’s own record for concurrent viewers on an individual’s Twitch stream with 667,000 concurrent viewers.
At the time, it wasn’t anything new in terms of format. Ninja mostly just applied the PUBG esports format to Fortnite.
But just like Keemstar does now, he added an emphasis on personality.
The event was about Ninja, players even got a financial incentive if they managed to kill him.
But, a lot of the on-screen broadcast time was spent on other top streamers too, like Myth. DrLupo was even one of the casters.
Fortnite has shown us that these on-screen personalities are what keep viewers watching.
After Ninja Vegas came the E3 Fornite Invitational Pro-Am.
Which leveraged the fact that even celebrities were caught up in the massive wave of
Fortnite culture. And teamed them up with top streamers to compete.
(Casting)
The event was our first opportunity to see Fortnite from a third-person perspective, getting to
see build battles from afar without having to deal with that spinning
first-person blueprint rollercoaster ride we're all used to.
By and large the event was successful widely viewed an even relatively action-packed.
And, in storybook fashion, Ninja and DJ Marshmellow came out the victors.
"And here you have it guys the 2018 Pro-Am Fortnite tournament winners."
Now, Fortnite Friday has been a shocking success,
Lil Yachty, Paul George and Marshmellow played at the Invitational and obviously Ninja Vegas was incredibly successful.
So, is Fortnite the future of esports?
Well, it hasn’t all been perfect.
Let’s get back to that $100,000,000 investment Epic is making.
It’s an exciting number, sure. But the implementation of the Fornite esports framework has been awkward…
"Dude I can't even move bro. I cannot even move bro. I cannot even move bro."
"One more time. Oh my god I can't even move!"
The Fornite Summer Skirmish is an 8-week-long summer tournament series that's happening every Friday and Saturday this summer.
$8,000,000 in prize money is guaranteed over the course of the event.
It sounds great right? Well even the first few weeks of the event have been mired in mixed reactions and severe technical problems.
"I can't run out of the storm because it's lagging. I'm still stuck in the zone. Are you kidding?"
"Are you kidding? I'm in the- what was that? Are you kidd- I couldn't get in the storm."
"Look how many people just died to the zone."
Epic hit the right tone by allowing players to stream the tournament,
but their viewer-friendly esports client wasn’t exactly ready for the start of the season.
There was lag, UI issues and going back to that focus on survival made the format just boring.
The Summer Skirmish does offer a small incentive for payers who are able to get the most kills,
But, if we're being honest it really only matters if you can get Victory Royales.
It’s simply about staying alive, and sometimes that’s like watching paint dry.
but Fortnite Friday never had that problem.
I think at this point it’s pretty hard to argue that Fortnite’s not well on its way to establishing itself as an esport...
But it is easy to argue that there’s a long way to go.
Pro players are literally trying to queue up into a lobby all at the same time in hopes of getting an effective scrim.
"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go. Now, if i missed that one I call I just quit. Period."
And the game itself does absolutely nothing to help competitive players.
There's no ranked mode, no custom lobbies, nothing. What we're seeing with Fortnite esports
is honestly not that far from the early days of of PUBG esports. where a
hundred players would load into a match at the same time leading to overheated
machines and failed events. The viewer experience was challenging to say the least.
(Casting)
At the centre of it all seems to be streaming.
Fortnite has proven that you don't need everybody all in the same place to compete. And that, when it comes
to viewership, personality and accessibility are often just as important as skill.
Fortnite has also proven that as much as we want to watch our favourite players win,
we also want to be able to interact with them,
we want to watch them style on people,
"Oh my! Turner!
We want to watch them dance and trash talk.
"What's that sound? Are you dancing right now?"
We want to get to the heart of what gaming is all about.
So is Fortnite an esport? Does it even matter?
"Dad!"
"Eighty six f***ing thousand dollars?"
"Yeah."
"Are you crying?"
"Little, yeah."
"Ha hey hey, I would too brother!"