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The first “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish ended in disaster with lags making the attempt by Epic Games to present its flagship title as a serious eSports prospect unplayable. The event involved a prize pool of $6,500, which would have been awarded to the team with the most kills. Unfortunately, this proved difficult with many players being frozen in place and unable to kill anything.
As Polygon notes, the “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish was supposed to be the high-profile event that should have been Epic’s triumphant attempt at a serious entry into eSports. Unfortunately, it was plagued by lags. This doesn’t just refer to occurrences of players suddenly teleporting outside or inside of buildings, either. The lags practically froze multiple players in place, which simply ruined the experience.
What’s more, the “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish was streamed live on Twitch, which meant that thousands of viewers saw how Epic absolutely dropped the ball on this one. The result was that numerous players were killed by the storm more often than they were eliminated by other players.
As far as optics go, this is not good for the developers. The lag-fest that plagued the “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish represents Epic’s first major stumbling block over a series of great press and coverage this year.
As a result of this issue, the “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish was cut short and of the 10 matches planned over the weekend, only four were played, IGN reports. There was supposed to have been another “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish scheduled for next week, but there have been no details regarding that particular schedule.
Right now, Epic would likely be focusing on addressing the online server issues that have been causing the lags. If not, all future “Fortnite” Summer Skirmish events are at risk of ending up the same way, and the studio simply can’t risk that happening. No amount of goodwill from the community can make a company immune to the damage that would cause.
