This past weekend (4/20-4/22) was Ninja ’18, one of the first major, organized Fortnite tournaments to be put together and broadcast to the Twitch community. The event was a major success, both in viewership and in building recognition and sustainability for the game. It was open to anyone that could afford the registration fee, and the total count of participants ended up being around 230 entrants, consisting of pros, semi-pros, and average joes from off the street hoping to break onto the scene for the first time. This great variety and talented pool of participants is what made the event so entertaining to watch and donate to, as much as be a part of. Ninja proved to be a pivotal role in the game itself, not just as a competitor but as an objective. There were three heats that the registration fee bought a participant and each of those games (9 total for the whole weekend) had two main prerogatives: survive and win the game, which would net a person $2500 and if possible, kill Ninja himself, which would also score a $2500 dollar pay day. In the grand scheme, any one could win up to $5000 dollars a match, if they happened to win and kill Ninja.

And there was a player of just that skill. Going by the name, “Blind” a registrant from Southern California both slew Ninja in a 1v1 and went on to later win the same game a build battle at the very end. As if the feat wasn’t impressive enough, he went on to win the very next game again, though he didn’t score the kill on Ninja the second time. Overall, just on those heat victories, Blind won $7500 dollars for playing a few hours of Fortnite (not to mention he got his name out there to multiple eSports organizations for possible signage).  The future for this game as an eSport looks bright and promising if influencers like Ninja stay behind it and promoting to the community just how entertaining the game can be.