Jaden Ashman from Essex, UK won approximately $2.25 million after coming in second place in Duos sections of Fortnite World Cup 2019. The 15-year-old will be sharing this prize money with his Dutch partner, Dave Jong.
Fortnite World Cup 2019was a 3-day-long tournament with a $30 million prize money and was held inside the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York. The finals were played out on Sunday where players from more than 30 countries competed for the winner’s trophy and prize.
Jaden was present with his parents cheering for him from side-lines. Later in an interview to BBC, Jaden said :
Me and my mum, we clash quite a lot. Like, she didn’t understand how it worked, so she thought that I was spending eight hours a day in my room just wasting my time.So now that I’ve proved to her that I can do stuff, I’m really happy.
Despite the resistance from his mother, Lisa Dallman, Jaden competed for online qualifiers with Dave Jong and was later invited to the main tournament to compete for Duos event.
Lisa Dallman told BBC :
If I’m honest with you I’ve been quite against him gaming. I’ve been more pushing him to his schoolwork.I’ve actually thrown an Xbox out, snapped a headset, we’ve had a nightmare.And then leading up to the games, getting his visa, we had problems with that so we had a week of a nightmare.Then the dog ate his birth certificate, so – and this is not a joke – this actually really did happen.And then my work messed up my wages, so three things went wrong before we started heading here so I knew we were on an even keel and everything was going to go right.
Later when asked about the prize money she said:
I think Jaden’s not really a materialistic person. He will have a lifetime supply of Uber Eats, and I think that will do him, to be fair.Just sitting there playing video games and eating takeaways, Jaden would be in his element.
The competition in the Fortnite World Cup was high with many veterans from big organizations also participating. These big organizations pay monthly salaries to their players and also provide them with almost all resources needed so that their players are always able to perform their best. Still with such circumstances, Jaden managed to secure 2nd place.
Parents should encourage their kids and support them. Esports is a very big and lucrative market now. Many players are able to earn a decent amount of money from just competing in tournaments and also have another opportunity to grow bigger and earn more. So the old taboo of gaming being time waste is just false in today’s world and parents shouldn’t discourage kids from playing.
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