On June 3rd, a LAN event took place in Dallas, the DreamHackDallas: There you played Fortnite in a solo tournament for $25,000 in prize money, the winner got around €7,400. But the match escalated: A Fortnite professional felt defeated by a youngster and allowed himself to be carried away by violence.
What was that tournament?
The next Season 3 in Chapter 3 is just starting in Fortnite:
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Pro Is 1st In Last Game – When A Boy “lands On Him”
What happened then? There is no recording of the stream, but from the accounts of the visitors and himself, apparently the player “DiegoPlayz” was ahead in the finals and went first into the last match.
DiegoPlayz is a North American professional player who competes for Team Moon Unit. He played in a duo with the extremely strong player, Bizzle, in May. So he can really do something and was therefore able to dominate the “normal amateurs” at the LAN.
But in the last game, when he was in 1st place, he was apparently deliberately “griefted”: A player who was already totally beaten and no longer played a role in the ranking landed “on him”: So he looked directly on the map when he jumped the confrontation with him.
“Landing on someone” is considered a violation of unwritten etiquette in Fortnite. It’s a bit like in a Formula 1 race when a lapped driver crashes directly into the leader. According to DiegoPlayz, the boy was also supported by a “whole group of friends”.
Diego felt cheated out of $8,000
After the match, DiegoPlayz allegedly went to the other player’s PC and punched him in the face.
There is only a recording of the seconds after the incident, when officers were already cleaning up the situation with the announcement. “Don’t fight here, there’s expensive shit here.”
Ninja thinks “Loser” compromised the integrity of the competition, somehow deserved it
That’s how it’s seen: Over-ambitious streamer Ninja sided with Diegoplayz when an acquaintance told him about the incident.
When Ninja hears the story, he says: That sounds good to him. While it’s not okay to resort to violence, the boy kind of begged for it.
That’s just a “damn loser.” He sums it up with “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes” – a loser shouldn’t endanger the integrity of the competition.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the other major Fortnite Twitch streamer, Turner “Tfue” Tenney, feels the same way. He is also known for letting his temper run wild.
Ninja understands overreactions.
Professional apologizes for his freak out
That’s how the professional sees it: DiegoPlay himself sees things differently in the meantime. He says it felt awful to be slowed down so close to winning LAN after trying so hard.
But despite everything, he shouldn’t have reacted like that. He now wants to apologize to the boy and his family – also to the Dreamhack (via twitlonger).
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Again and again stress about Fortnite as an e-sport
This is behind it: Such incidents show again and again that Fortnite is simply unsuitable as an e-sport. The Fortnite grind concept clashes with the idea of eSports:
Because there are so many ways to play “wrong” that Fortnite allows, but somehow violate “unwritten competition rules”:
All of these are significant issues that a “proper esports title” simply doesn’t have. With LoL or CS:GO, such “Griefing” is not possible in e-sports.
It’s not just Fortnite that’s stressful:
Boy gets so freaked out in Call of Duty that he gets kicked off the school team and somehow becomes famous
The cover picture shows Diegoplayz at Dreamhack. It’s from his Twitter channel.