Mongraal, Benjyfishy, more slam Fortnite Winter Royale prizing

Andrew Amos
Twitter: FaZe Clan / Twitter: NRG / Epic Games

The $15 million Fortnite Winter Royale has helped fill the post-FNCS competitive void, but pro players like FaZe Clan’s Kyle ‘Mongraal’ Jackson and NRG’s Benjy ‘Benjyfishy’ Fish aren’t impressed with the prize pool split.

The Fortnite Winter Royale in 2019 is an early birthday present for players of the popular battle royale. With a $15 million prize pool split across the world, duos will have three days to grind to the top and earn a bit of Christmas cheer.

However, some pros have raised complaints about how the tournament is formatted, and how thin the prize pool is spread. Players like Mongraal and Benjyfishy have spoken out against the thin prize pools, saying that the three-day tournament is a let down compared to previous events.

Epic GamesThe Fortnite Winter Royale is being criticized by some pro players over its thinly-spread prize pool.

Each platform is expected to get similar prize pools for each day across the weekend, but Mongraal questioned why that’s happening at all.

“There is a prize pool for every region, every platform, top 500 to top 1000, and console has the same prize pool as PC,” he said.

Given the fact that there’s plenty of competitive regions and platforms, the $15 million set aside for the tournament will dry up pretty quick, leaving some players at the top with very little to show for their efforts. 

Fortnite World Cup duos champion David ‘Aqua‘ Wang zeroed in on the fact that “EU mobile gets more for first than NA-West PC players get,” even though PC has been the official competitive mode throughout the game’s history.

Benjyfishy also highlighted how thin the prize pool is, showing that the winners of the Winter Royale Day 1 receive $9,000, a far cry from the hundreds of thousands that have previously been on offer.

He also criticized Epic for giving console and PC players the same prize pool, even though he believes PC is the more competitive platform.

“Console players are nowhere near as competitive as people on PC,” he said. “It’s just impossible to be as good on 60 FPS and max settings. PC should be getting more money.”

The $15 million Fortnite Winter Royale will be running on across December 20 to 22, with prizes given to the best 1000 players on each platform on each day. You can find out more information about the Fortnite Winter Royale here.