Fortnite: Professional hits young player on LAN – Instead of a penalty, he will probably get a €14,900 reward

On June 3rd, Fortnite hosted a LAN event in Dallas. But things escalated when pro player Diego Playz found himself robbed of the win and $8,000 in prize money by a young opponent. The pro went to the other player after the match and hit him. After the events, a penalty was expected for the player. That doesn’t happen at the moment, instead Twitch streamer and crypto millionaire Trainwreck offers him double the prize money in Bitcoin.

What has happened there? We reported extensively on the incident on MeinMMO on Pentecost Sunday:

• In an amateur tournament in Fortnite – No Build, pro player Diego Playz finished in the last round and was in good position to bag $8,000 in prize money. However, a young player “landed on him” and ruined his win. Diego Plays felt this was “griefing” – a violation of the unwritten rules in Fortnite.
• Diego Playz was so upset by his defeat that he went to the boy’s PC and slapped him in the face. When the boy chased him afterwards, Dreamhack stewards and other bystanders intervened, separating the two and leading Diego Playz away from the angry boy.
• Diego Playz apologized for his behavior. He was angry, but violence is not a solution.

The Season 3 Chapter 3 in the gameplay trailer:

Observers say: “He should be banned from all tournaments”

What did you expect after the incident? The initial reaction to the incident was that many onlookers said, “Boy, you can get banned for that.”

On the Facebookpage of MeinMMO, users comment about:

• “Unfortunate for the pro… you can never condone violence. If you can’t control your emotions, you should be locked away.”
• “Ban for life from any tournament”
• “He must have been a professional for the longest time there.”

On Twitter, too, his followers at least suspect that this incident could bring in a lifetime ban from LAN tournaments.

The professional’s esports team still jokes about it

But this really happened: There are currently no negative consequences for the player. The Dreamhack only mentioned that the incident had been “clarified”. Fortnite developer Epic seems to have kept a low profile lately – even racist gaffes go uncommented.

The player’s team made a “statement on the situation” (via twitter). But that was a troll attempt: The statement was only about Fortnite downtime.

So the Diego Playz esports team doesn’t seem to care much about the incident. Apparently you find that funny.

Big Twitch streamers like the pro’s reaction – one offers him double the prize money

Instead of a penalty, Diego Playz gets a lot of approval for his punch from the biggest Fornite streamers on Twitch:

• While Tyler “Ninja” Blevins doesn’t approve of violence, he says, “The kid kind of begged for it, too,” because his grimace compromised the integrity of the competition
• Turner “Tfue” Tenney felt the same way

Crypto millionaire Trainwreck goes even further (via twitter). Upon learning of the incident, he wrote to Diego Playz via Twitter:

Dude, you stood up for yourself and your hard work. Fuck that boy and fuck anyone who tells you otherwise. Send me your bitcoin address. Screw the $8,000 prize money, I’ll send you $16,000.

Whether Diego Playz will accept Trainwreck’s offer and get the “double prize money” is not certain at the moment. But Trainwreck has a reputation for taking such offers seriously.

Other Twitter users also promptly attached themselves to Trainwreck’s post: They just happened to have unfairly lost a lot of money … couldn’t there be something to be done about that?

Trainwreck seems to be on a different scale financially than most people. He apparently made $1 million in risky cryptocurrency speculation. Even if he spends his free time gambling the money in online casinos. He lets himself be filmed on Twitch:

Twitch streamer loses $8m, yells at viewer who advises him not to gamble