When photographer Nathaniel Wood decided to shoot a pro-am Fortnite tournament at E3 in Los Angeles this week, he assumed the result would look like so many other esports events: tightly framed portraits of competitors, lit by the glow of their monitors. What he got instead was an open-air stadium underneath a sunny Los Angeles sky.
Good thing that Wood is used to parachuting into unexpected conditions and improvising. His experience covering events helps, sure, but be real: it’s the hours he’s spent playing Fortnite with his brother. “I realized very quickly I had to make the best of it and get some shots that no one else has seen,” says Wood, who traded telephoto portrait lenses for wider ones, taking a more documentary approach. And instead of monitor glow, he relied on a powerful, hard flash to overpower the sun.
And what he came away with are snapshots not of digital culture, but of esports’ real-life vitality: starstruck fans getting photo ops with celebrities, cosplayers dressed up as Fortnite characters, and spectators' eyes squinting out the sun to catch the action on two Jumbotrons.
Hosting the competition outdoors was particularly apt, considering how Fortnite is one of those rare games that help shed the stereotype that gamers are exclusively indoor creatures relegated to sitting behind RGB-lit mechanical keyboards.
"Drake's not out here playing League of Legends,” says Wood, referring to a popular but inscrutable strategy game that was an esports staple. “He's playing Fortnite with Ninja." Ninja, of course, is a popular game streamer who claims he earns around $500,000 a month playing Fortnite for his 8.4 million Twitch followers and 13 million YouTube subscribers. Combined, that's more than the average viewership of the NBA Finals in any of the past three years.
That’s the future that Wood’s photos offer a glimpse into: one in which gaming is increasingly social, even among mainstream celebrities, and in which participation doesn't necessarily require playing the game. Fortnite generated $296 million in revenue in April, according to analysis by SuperData Research—and across all viewing platforms, the Fortnite Pro-Am garnered more than 3 million views.
Yes, the game’s blue-haired superstar Ninja was there. No, he didn't play with Drake this time. His celebrity partner this time was EDM producer Marshmello, who played with his helmet on the entire time. Apparently that didn't impair their performance; they won. Their $1 million winnings were a full third of the prize pool, all of which went to charity. And that’s only the beginning: Epic Games, Fortnite's developer, is committing $100 million in purse for the first year of competitive play kicking off later this fall.
So maybe avoid the heat waves this summer by staying in and honing your mouse and keyboard chops. Sun's out, virtual guns out.
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