Before the 2019 World Cup, Bugha had a respectable online following, but he was still overshadowed by massive content creators like Ninja and Tfue. It wasn’t until he won the solos World Cup and claimed the title of Best Fortnite Player in the World that his following exploded.

The 17-year-old took home $3million and gained a loyal following that would stick with him over the years. While Bugha was undoubtedly the best, other streamers and content creators were being rewarded with Icon Series outfits. Players such as Ninja, TheGrefg, and LoserFruit were among the first to have their personas immortalized in Fortnite.

Bugha’s Fortnite Icon Series Skin

Now, the long-awaited Bugha Icon Series skin has been revealed alongside Bugha’s Late Game mode and tournament. The cosmetic set comes with three style variants, an emote, harvesting tool, and back bling featuring Bugha’s pug Zoey.

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The Bugha’s Late Game mode is a new trios arena mode that starts players in the third zone. This mode will be available to play from July 20 to 28. A tournament featuring this game mode will be held on July 28. The prize pool for the tournament is $100,000.

Bugha’s set will be in the Item Shop starting at 8 p.m. on July 20. Players can purchase each of Bugha’s items individually or as a discounted bundle. The reveal trailer below showcases each of the new cosmetic items, as well as explains the meaning behind some of the items.

With the Bugha Icon Series skin adding Kyle Giersdorf to Fortnite, who do you think should be next? Should it be another competitive player like Faze Sway or Benjy Fishy, or should it be a massive content creator like SypherPK or NickEh30. Let us know down below who should be the next Fortnite Icon Series skin.

In 2019, Epic Games dove headfirst into Fortnite’s competitive Esports scene. Following a $100 million prize pool for the year 2018, Epic put up another $100 million in 2019. This insane amount of prize money dwarfed other competitive games in comparison.

2019 was also the year of Fortnite’s first-ever World Cup. The Fortnite World Cup took place from July 26 – 28 in New York City and boasted $30 million in total prizes. One hundred of the best solo players from around the world, and 50 duo teams, competed for a massive amount of money.

Epic Games falls short of revenue goals

While the amount of money up for grabs seems quite impressive, it didn’t net Epic Games with the desired results. During the trial of Epic Games vs Apple, documents were shared that outlined the revenues that Fortnite generated from 2018 to 2019. Epic Games planned to make $4.59 billion during the 2018-2019 fiscal year but actually earned $4.2 billion instead.

• Read More: Epic shut down Arena Boxfighting & Fortnite World Cup leak

The documents stated that Epic Games had anticipated making $154 million more from Fortnite’s Esports scene than it was actually able to generate. While Epic Games is raking in billions of dollars a year, it’s unlikely that it will pour money into something that isn’t as profitable.

This major discrepancy in earnings could explain why there hasn’t been another Fortnite World Cup. After $100 million was awarded in 2019, 2020 saw a massive dip in prize money. The pool for the entire year was only $17 million.

Epic Games stated at the beginning of this year that it would be pledging $20 million in prize money for Fortnite’s 2021 competitive scene. This is $10 million less than the total prize pool for the Fortnite World Cup. Epic also stated that it had no plans for an in-person World Cup event this year.

The lack of prize money has been apparent over the past year as competitive Fortnite players have taken to social media to express their concerns. In 2019, the FNCS qualifier prize pool was $1 million a week for three months. Now, players are competing for a $3 million prize pool over the course of an entire season of FNCS.

• Read More: Epic Games announce 2021 Trios FNCS & cancel World Cup

The Fortnite World Cup may return in some capacity, but players shouldn’t expect a massive $30 million prize pool. The worldwide pandemic could be to blame for the lack of in-person tournaments, but that doesn’t mean it’s the sole reason there haven’t been any. Epic Games might be focusing on the more profitable aspects of Fortnite to endure the game’s longevity.

The collaboration will, undoubtedly, bring more players to the Party Royale game mode than ever before. To prepare, Epic posted a blog that told players how to get to the mode and how to navigate to the main stage. They even posted a picture of the Party Royale mode for those who were struggling to find it.

The only problem with this guide was that there were two leaks included in this picture. One of these leaks was something that we covered when Season 4 began: Boxfight Arenas. The next was the Duos World Cup – suggesting that players might be competing remotely, this year.

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Of course, posts about this photo circulated on Reddit and social media. Epic were quick to dispel these rumors, however, telling players that these images were only placeholders.

“With the BTS announce today, we wanted to have an article that helped new players find their way in Party Royale,” GstaggEpic wrote on the r/FortniteCompetitive subreddit. “This blog was incorrectly published with images from a dev build that showed test playlist images of Fortnite World Cup and Boxfight Arena. To properly set expectations, these images are not a hint of events to come. Instead, they are old assets

Despite this statement, we’re holding out hope that Boxfight Arenas will still be a thing. The World Cup 2020 seems to be impossible, at this stage, but an Arena Boxfighting mode is quite an interesting concept.

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For now, though, we have to assume that leaks surrounding this mode were only old assets that players found at the start of the season. We’ll keep you posted if or when we learn more about these modes.

Epic reviewed the clips in question and banned both players for two weeks. This was the first professional cheating scandal to rock Fortnite, and Epic weren’t prepared for it. The two returned after their ban, only to qualify for the grand finals as a duo.

• Read More: This day in Fortnite history: Bugha wins the Solo World Cup

The community came together to collectively roast both of these players. Their organization dropped them and they had to compete as free agents. At the World Cup finals LAN event, the crowd cheered as the duo was eliminated on the big screen. DrLupo even called XXiF a “bot” during the official broadcast.

Since the World Cup, both XXiF and Ronaldo left Fortnite to pursue Valorant. It would have been tough for them to build their way back into the community, as 90% of players knew them only as “the World Cup cheaters.”

• Read More: Arkham dominates NA-West region of DreamHack Open Fortnite Finals

We said that this was the first professional cheating scandal in Fortnite, but it wasn’t the last. See that search bar at the top of the screen? Type “cheat” into that. Dubs, Kreo, Bucke, Slackes, and Keys have all been banned for cheating in tournaments – and that’s only in the NA-East region. We’ve also seen Japanese pros, console pros, and Australian pros banned for cheating – and some of their transgressions are far worse than anything XXiF and Ronaldo did. We’re talking about aimbot, macros, and DDoSing.

Bucke, Keys, Kreo, and Slackes were all banned for teaming with one another during the FNCS Duos competition. As you can see from the clip, they used each other for Storm Surge tags while in the Slurpy Swamp area. They would shoot one another – make sure not to finish – and get the free shields at Slurpy so that both teams could avoid Storm Surge.

Dubs was banned in the FNCS solos competition for “teaming” as well. He had more of a defense for his actions than the former group but still received a competitive ban for appearing to avoid one player while attacking others who landed with him at Rickety Rig.

What’s happened since the banning of these players? Kreo was dropped from his organization but later acquired by Built by Gamers – as was Bucke. Keys and Slackes were signed to an even bigger organization in Luminosity. Dubs remained with his organization, FaZe Clan, through this cheating allegation and an N-word controversy to top it off. None of them received an ounce of the backlash that XXiF and Ronaldo still receive to this day.

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This article is not to say that these players deserve to have their careers ended. We’re, simply, highlighting that this is a different era of Fortnite. The professional community has changed. If XXiF and Ronaldo were caught cheating in the upcoming FNCS competition, they would have received a longer ban but far less blow-back from the community; almost certainly.

Recently, there was a post on the r/FortniteCompetitive subreddit that showed XXiF and Ronaldo in a Fortnite lobby, entitled, “Xxif and Ronaldo coming back to Fortnite .” It brought the topic back to the forefront, briefly, although neither player has engaged with the speculation. To our surprise, the comments on the post were largely understanding.

“They were dumba***s for cheating and don’t deserve the money,” one Redditor wrote, “BUT, they seem to have been the scapegoats/poster children for cheaters. So many people have been exposed since them, but they got the full brunt of the lifelong hate.”

“I honestly feel bad for both of them,” wrote another. “As humans, we need to be better about forgiving people. Majority of Fortnite players are younger and love giving into cancel culture for these 2, but players like Keys, Kreo, Slackes, and them they can easily forgive because they place consistently and have a streaming fan base.”

Our point is this: it’s been a full year since the XXiF and Ronaldo scandal. Multiple high-profile pros have been caught cheating or skirting the rules since then and retained their careers and popularity. Is it time that we forgive these two and move on? The decision is, ultimately, yours.

The World Cup was the most prolific, and most prestigious Fortnite tournament ever hosted. To this day – a full year later – players still tout their World Cup placements and qualification numbers. The event, alone, catapulted the careers of several Fortnite pros who have since become household names within the community – none more so than Kyle ‘Bugha’ Giersdorf.

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When the competition ended, Bugha – a relatively unknown Fortnite pro for Sentinels – became one of the biggest single-event earners of all time, winning the Solo World Cup event. He went home with over $3 million and hundreds of thousands of new Twitch viewers. In the span of one weekend, Bugha became a star.

It’s been exactly one year since Bugha took home first place in the World Cup Solos competition. Since then, he’s become one of the leading Fortnite streamers on Twitch and a top esports pro. Recently, Bugha became the first person to sign with Gary Vaynerchuk’s new esports talent agency, VaynerGaming.

• Read More: Arkham dominates NA-West region of DreamHack Open Fortnite Finals

The story of Bugha represents the story of so many others who were able to pursue their dream thanks to Fortnite. This game was unlike so many others from a professional standpoint. Instead of seeing a group of already established pros jump to Fortnite from other games, we saw a crop of young gamers pop up and dominate – solidifying themselves in the esports world.

We haven’t heard anything about a second Fortnite World Cup in a while. COVID put a damper on any plans that Epic may have had to host another event in 2020. Until another World Cup is announced, Bugha remains one of three World Cup champions – and the only one to win in the solo format.

The Fortnite World Cup was where dreams came true. Unknown Fortnite pros went home with hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars and brand new careers. Thanks to Fortnite and the World Cup, Bugha and others will outlive the game and, likely, remain pillars of the gaming community for years to come.

The event brought Fortnite players from around the world together to compete for bragging rights and a massive bag of cash. It also opened the door to some organizations to capitalize on hopeful pro players. One Chinese organization, Newbee, is now being accused of stealing the qualifier money from two of their pros, XXM and xMende.

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Rhidax, a Fortnite coach in the EU and Asia regions, posted a tweet thread on July 21 in which he presented the accusations against Newbee. The org has been accused of fixing matches in Dota 2, which led to their disbanding. “Newbee trapped their players in contracts and stole all Fortnite prize money since WC, including 2 world cup qualifiers. ($100,000+ stolen),” Rhidax wrote.

Rhidax also posted screenshots of messages from one of the Newbee pros, WenQian, who is another player to have allegedly had their earnings stolen. In the conversation, he appears to be defeated – seeing little to no chance of getting his money back now that the org is defunct.

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As Rhidax wrote, “This also explains the whole ‘why did 2 World Cup qualifiers quit the game immediately’ situation, I wouldn’t play if I just had 50k stolen from me.”

Another prominent Fortnite coach, DestinysJesus, responded to the tweet thread, suggesting that this may be the biggest organization scam in the history of esports. Rhidax responded, “Be surprised if there’s an org that’s scammed more than this in Fortnite.

Newbee has yet to respond to these accusations, so it’s unclear exactly how much truth there is to them. If these claims are true, however, they may trigger an investigation into all of their past conduct. Newbee has been a large player in Dota 2 for years, with accusations of match-fixing surfacing earlier this year. Will there be any repercussions for this now-disbanded organization? Only time will tell.

On June 25, Epic Games reached out to us with a statement on the issue, clarifying why some of the prize money and Creator Code earnings have been held up. Below is the official statement from Epic Games on the matter.

Epic Games’ official response to FortniteINTEL

“Recently, we experienced delays to Competitive prizes due to two separate issues. The first issue was related to our DreamHack Anaheim event. Here, we encountered delays due to additional California state tax withholding that required manual processing of payments outside of our Hyperwallet payment system. All prizes for DreamHack Anaheim have been sent directly to player bank accounts. These prizes should be deposited in the respective winners accounts in the next few days. We apologize for the delay.

The second issue was related to overpayments for some prize winners of online cups due to a clerical error and required manual correction. Now that we have sorted out the overpayment issues, we are back on track to process prizes in a more timely manner.

Regarding Support-A-Creator payouts, there are two issues at play. The first relates to us running into obstacles as we transition to a new payment system, including bugs and delays. We appreciate Creators who have been patient as we make this transition and resolve those issues. Creators who are encountering issues should watch our Hyperwallet Account Activation tutorial or reach out to Support-A-Creator Player Support for assistance.

The second issue involves creators who have violated the terms of the Support-A-Creator program by scamming or defrauding players. Typically these individuals create social media material that falsely promises special benefits to players relating to a specific Support-A-Creator code. The players use the code but never receive the special benefits they were promised. When these accounts are detected or reported, we remove these creators from the program and do not pay out their fraudulent accounts. We take these violations seriously, and are looking at additional measures to prevent bad actors from abusing the program, up to and including potential legal action.”

• Click here for Hyperwallet account activation
• Click here for Epic Games player support

There should be a more detailed blog post from Epic Games on the topic within the hour, giving more information on all of these issues. We’ll keep you updated as this story develops.

Epic seemed to be halting their official competitive Fortnite casts before everything shut down. Fans have been relying on people like BallaTW to cast competitive events or EmadGG to host viewing parties.

Instead of massive LAN events like the World Cup, Epic have been dishing out prize money through Cash Cups and FNCS tournaments.

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Some players grew irritated with Epic when they saw the prize pool split for each region and platform. Mobile players in Europe had a chance to win more money than PC players in NA-West, to which many pros took exception.

Fortnite has no lack of funding, but Epic seem to be hesitant to announce a prize pool as big as that of the World Cup. To be fair, they may have had a plan before the quarantine started, but we won’t know.

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Fortnite coach, ArcaneCG, had an interesting idea on how to help fund future Fortnite tournaments. He suggested that Epic release team-based cosmetics for organizations like Liquid, TSM, FaZe, NRG, and others.

If you combine the sales of these cosmetics with 5% of Battle Pass sales, then you’ll have a massive prize pool – entirely generated by the community.

Epic have been extremely generous with their prize pools, but seem to have been content to cut corners in the production department. Something like this could help generate the prize pool and allow Epic to spend some money on official casts.

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Organizations seem to be hot and cold on professional Fortnite. Ghost appears to be completely divesting in the game, while TSM and NRG continue to sign new players.

Fans would have the chance to buy a skin for their favorite organization with the knowledge that their purchase went towards the next competitive event. It’s a win-win and something that Epic should consider in the future.

Competitive Fortnite has now covered all of the different game modes. We had Solos and Duos in the World Cup along with Trios and Squads FNCS competitions.

We’re in the midst of downtime in Season 1, which means there are few competitive opportunities outside of Cash Cups and Hype Nites. Many players are wondering what’s next for competitive Fortnite.

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Data miner @iFireMonkey reported that Trios was added to the top of the playlists in the Fortnite API. Naturally, this signifies that it will likely come to the game with the start of Season 2.

It’s unclear whether or not Trios will be the standard format or if we’ll be able to play Arena Trios again. This also raises the question: could we be getting a Trios World Cup?

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The Duos World Cup was relatively exciting from a viewership perspective, but the Trios FNCS might have been even better. World Cup Solos is a no-brainer, but the second mode is still up for debate.

Hopefully, the Trios playlist is a sign of things to come for competitive Fortnite. It was a little cleaner than Squads but still gave viewers that big-team feeling.

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This mode might not be the most conventional one in Fortnite, but the Trios FNCS got a lot of viewers. Epic may be positioning competitive Fortnite to head into the World Cup 2020 with a Trios competition.

Fortnite competition has been a bit one-dimensional since the Trios FNCS wrapped-up. Epic is likely waiting for Season 2 before they make any announcements, which will hopefully trigger a World Cup 2020 reveal.

One of the ways that competitive Fortnite players have been staying busy is through Cash Cups. These are mostly solo competitions where players earn smaller rewards more frequently.

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Fortnite coach and analyst Arcane has gathered the stats on the Cash Cup performances and delivered the top earners from the two most prestigious regions: NA-East and EU. We’ll start with NA-East, topped by none other than the controller king Dominick ‘UnknownxArmy’ Green.

Unknown has made a name for himself through his Cash Cup performances – repeatedly placing highly and winning on both a controller and keyboard.

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Following Unknown, there are several other popular names like Khanada, Aspect, and Scoped along with two under-the-radar players MRKN Av and Marzz_OW. Rounding off the list we have World Cup champion Bugha and thwifo, who recently parted ways with Ghost Gaming.

Heading over to the EU region, we see a sharp spike in overall winnings. BenjyFishy, the leading earner, blows everyone else out of the water with $52,350 earned from Cash Cups alone.

Other top-tier pros like aqua – another World Cup winner – mitr0 and MrSavageM round-off the list.

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Arcane also compiled a list of the top earners since the Fortnite World Cup last year. Unsurprisingly, BenjyFishy also tops this list with aqua behind him.

The six highest earners after the World Cup are all from the EU region. That says something about the level of competition out there.

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A lot of players and outlets have been campaigning for higher prize pools in the EU region. With stats like this, it’s difficult to argue that the top players aren’t from EU. I guess we’ll have to wait and see at the next Fortnite World Cup.