Fortnite: UK player places second in e-sports World Cup
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A British teenager has won nearly a million pounds after placing second alongside his teammate in the Fortnite World Cup finals.
Jaden Ashman, from Essex will split $2.25m (£1,8m) with his Dutch partner.
Popular online shooter game Fortnite has 250 million users worldwide, and the event’s prize pool of $30m is the biggest ever at an e-sports event.
Jaden told the BBC he was “stunned” to have finished so high.
Competing under the name Wolfiez, he and his team-mate Dave Jong (Rojo) came second in the duos event.
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Norwegian Emil Bergquist Pedersen and Austrian David W – Nyhrox and Aqua – took first place, winning by 51 points to Ashman and Jong’s 47.
The singles final takes place on Sunday.
Jaden has played the game since it came out around two years ago, but unlike many of the finalists, he is relatively unknown with only a few thousand followers and fans on gaming social media.
His mother, Lisa Dallman, said she and her son used to have rows because his grades suffered at school.
She said she once threw out an Xbox after an argument – but now accepts Jaden’s career choice as a professional e-sports player.
The Fortnite finals conclude on Sunday with 100 players battling on giant computer screens in the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.
Forty million players attempted to qualify over 10 weeks of online competition.
The winner will take home $3m and become the first Fortnite World Champion.
With $30m to be awarded in total, the prize pool will be the biggest given away at an e-sports event so far – until the annual DOTA 2 tournament in August.
More than 30 nations are represented with 70 players coming from the US, 14 from France and 11 from the UK.
Fortnite is arguably the world’s most popular game and involves 100 players being dropped onto an island where they have to find weapons, build structures and eliminate each other until one player comes out on top.