In what remains to be a dream in airsoft, having megabucks competitions, in eSports, they are now awarding millions of dollars. In the recently concluded Fortnite World Cup, a 16-year-old from Pennsylvania won the US$3 million top prize. Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf outscored the runner-up "psalm" by 26 points to bag the top prize in the eSports tournament finals that was held at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, New York.

Fortnite is an immensely famous online Battle Royale Games that is competing for the top crown in the gaming world against PUBG, and there are more Battle Royale Games from even the known FPS video game franchises such as Call of Duty. Fortnite, which is owned by Epic Games, has over 250 million users, that should be easy for the company to put a total of US$30 million in prize money even if the game is free to acquire. Fortnite earns from micro transactions by buying “V bucks” which is the game’s online currency to pay make in-game purchases such skins, pre-released game modes, and even dances. Since its launching, Fortnite has been said to have earned US$1.5 billion from its players through micro transactions.

Fortnite World Cup players earn money as they advance through the stages of the finals with the best of the best taking the top prizes. Here is the list of winners:

NYC Celebrity Pro-AM Winners: Airwaks + RLGRIME

Creative Finals Winners: Fish Fam: cizzorz, TylerH, Suezhoo and zand

Duos Winners: nyhrox + aqua

Solos Winner: Bugha

Githyp, the Twitch tracking website, reported that an estimated 1.3 million people watched finals online making it the most watche eSports event on Twitch with about half a million on YouTube. The matches can be watched via different streaming services so the numbers can be higher.

Players qualify for the finals earned points in the single or duos weekly tournaments with those getting the highest points being invited for the big money finals with the player or team with the most number of points after 6 matches being announced the winner. Those playing duos will have to split the US$3 million earnings whilst solo players get to keep the whole US$3 million.

Airsoft is nowhere near what eSports can offer, even if there is a crossover between the two as many airsoft players also play Fortnite. The highest prize money in airsoft is US$10,000 at the G&G CQB World Cup for the male division (a measly US$3,000 for the women’s division in this time when women are demanding equal pay and equal prize money with many prestigious tournament such as Wimbledon now offering the same amount to winners of the men’s and women’s singles).  There was news about the an airsoft Battle Royal game in an island to be funded by an anonymous person with a prize money of US$130,000 though nothing further came out of it.

We just hope that some big money airsoft sports event will happen in our lifetime.

All photos from Epic Games.