Mentioned in this article
League/Tournament Brands:
- Turner “Tfue” Tenney and a slew of other high-profile Twitch influencers left Wednesday’s Twitch Rivals Fortnite tournament early.
- The group of streamers cited logistical issues with the tournament as well as the competitive imbalance of Fortnite in deciding to quit mid-tournament.
- Influencers quitting a tournament comes after numerous logistical and competitive balance-related issues with Fortnite esports over the past year.
Epic Games’ popular battle royale game Fortnite is experiencing another issue with its viability as an influencer-driven esport as the developer continues to experiment with competitively balanced play. This time, numerous influencers, including Twitch’s top streamer Turner “Tfue” Tenney exited a Twitch Rivals tournament before its conclusion due to connection issues and competitive imbalance.
During Twitch Rivals’ $400K USD prize pool Fortnite Showdown, which started Wednesday and ends today, Turner “Tfue” Tenney led a list of streamers who stopped competing in the event because of connection issues that prevented them from being able to load into matches or due to competitive imbalances in the game that have come from a powerful “B.R.U.T.E” mechanized vehicle.
Among the other influencers to leave the tournament early were Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, Tim “TimTheTatman” Betar, Dennis “Cloakzy” Lepore, Ben “DrLupo” Lupo, and World Cup solo event champion Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf.
Tenney personally exited the event in frustrated fashion during his livestream after the customized lobby of participants was set to load into a match, but he was left out due to a technical error.
Other players stopped playing after being on the wrong end of a “B.R.U.T.E.” mech, which many professional competitors deem to be “overpowered,” or effectively impossible to compete against. Dunlop and Betar quit after Dunlop passionately vented his frustrations following a match where the two were eliminated by a “B.R.U.T.E.” that they had no possible way of countering.
Following a rant in which Dunlop talked about how he frequently talks to people from Epic Games about the developer’s plans for the game, the streamer went speechless for minutes before turning his attention to Minecraft.
Issues with competitive imbalance spurned from “B.R.U.T.E.” mechs has been compared to another weapon which many pros considered to be overpowered that Epic Games previously included in Fortnite. However, following community outcry from pros regarding the imbalance the “Infinity Blade” brought to the game, Epic Games removed it.
This time around, Epic Games has taken an inverse course of action though, instead digging in its heels. After numerous pros and streamers complained about the new vehicle, Epic announced that it would be keeping the item in the game unchanged.
With Fortnite being one of the most influencer-driven games on Twitch, and certainly the most influencer-driven esport, regularly recurring technical problems revolving around competitive events and in-game imbalance are of the utmost importance.
Without influencers like Tenney, among others, competing in online events, the relevance of Fortnite as an esport could see a steep decline, despite the successes of the in-person World Cup event that happened just one month ago.
