In January, the Australian Open tennis tournament hosted the Fortnite Summer Smash event which promised cash prizes with a total prize pool of $400,000. Now, several players who made it into the top 100 players (the minimum placing to win prize money) say they are still waiting for payment for their winnings.
The player ttvLeftRightGN first brought these accusations to light with a Reddit post on the Fortnite subreddit this past weekend. Places 21st through 100th were set to earn $1000, with increased winnings for placings above that. ttvLeftRightGN was in the $1000 prize-winning group and says they have yet to be paid those winnings. More and more players have started coming forward to share that they too still haven't been paid their winnings either. Devour, a player who placed eighth was set to have earned $5000 says they have not been paid yet and has compiled a list of other players that are also still waiting on payment for the tournament. Even players in the top spots claim they are still waiting; Naro "Araki" Vong and Jadyn "NotNaapr" Lam, second and third places respectively, are supposed to receive $50,000 but say they haven't received anything yet.
ttvLeftRightGN stated in their post that they have reached out to Epic Games directly for help on the matter and were told that Epic Games only sponsors the Fortnite World Cup and that they would need to contact the tournament organizers directly for help with the missing payment. However, in tournament information posts it states that "Prizes will be distributed directly by Epic Games."
There has been a response from Reddit user Magyst, an employee of Epic Games, regarding the situation. Magyst states:
We have confirmed that there are instances where Fortnite Summer Smash players have not completed all the necessary information that is required to process payments. If you have yet to receive a payment, please verify that you are inputting the accurate information at www.fortnite.com/esports.He goes on to say that Epic will also be cross-checking their payment system to see if there might be any other issues that have prevented payments from going to the players affected and that some payments from the Fortnite World Cup lead-up and Online Open tournaments are also still being verified and processed. They will be releasing a public tracker soon which players will be able to reference to help keep track of payment statuses alongside their normal email updates.
How do you think Epic Games has handled this situation? What do you think should be done to avoid this from happening again?
