Published 14:08 IST, July 23rd 2020
Fortnite players suddenly retire amid allegations of $100,000 scam against Newbee Gaming
Five Fortnite professional players have suddenly retired. Two players were from Newbee Gaming, currently accused of stealing $100k from its players.
Chinese Esports organisation Newbee Gaming is quickly becoming one of the most controversial organisations in Esports history. Earlier this year, Newbee Gaming was banned for match-fixing by Chine Dota 2 Association (CDA). The former TI champions along with the five DOTA 2 players who were involved in the scandal were blacklisted from all tier 1 Esports events.
Fortnite stealing? Newbee Gaming accused of scam
While the match-fixing scandal is still fresh in the world of Esports, Fortnite coach Rhidax has accused Newbee Gaming of stealing over $100,000 in prize money from its own players. Rhidax, who coaches Asian and European players, shared a Twitter thread where he revealed the details of the scandal. The Fortnite coach noted Newbee Gaming trapped its players in contracts and have been stealing their prize money since Fortnite World Cup 2019. XXM and XMende had their Fortnite World Cup prize money stolen by the organisation. Rhidax also shared multiple screenshots of a conversation with WenQian (current player for Newbee Gaming) where the latter admitted he is still owed $10,000 of his prize money and has no hopes of getting his money back.
Shedding light on the latest Fortnite Esports controversy in China, Sportskeeda reports five professional players have suddenly announced their retirement with little to no explanation. XXM and xMende - members of Newbee Gaming - retired in 2019 after the global tournament in 2019. Since then, Evilmare, KBB and YuWang have also retired from competitive Fortnite. Evilmare represented FunPlus Phoenix (FPX), and KBB & YuWang represented Team World Elite.
Fortnite World Cup 2019 was one of the biggest Esports events in history. The global competition clocked over 2.3 million viewers and had the largest prize pool in the history of Fortnite competitive events - $30 million. For qualifying to the tournament alone, players were rewarded $50,000. Kyle "Bugha" Giersdorf came first in the Solo Cup and took home a cash prize of $3 million.
The Newbee Gaming players, XXM and XMende (who had their money stolen) finished 49th in last year's tournament, winning $50,000 each. The duo quit competitive Fortnite soon after the major event. The team's current roster consists of five players - WenQian, Duomo, Yan, Grass and uxo.
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(Image Credits: Newbee Gaming Twitter Handle)
Updated 14:08 IST, July 23rd 2020