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A British teenager is taking home $1.25 million in Fortnite World Cup prize money

And he did it playing with a controller.

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A 15-year-old boy from Essex was one of the prizewinners in the Fortnite World Cup Saturday. Jaden Ashman and his partner Dave Jong place second in a duos round in the tournament.

Ashman and Jong both get a $1.25 million (£1 million) slice of the $30 million Fortnite World Cup prize pool. They came in second to Norway’s Emil “Nyhrox” Bergquist Pederson and Austria’s David “Aqua” W.

Ashman, who plays Fortnite under the name Wolfiez, was profiled by The Guardian, which points out that he and his mother Lisa have been occasionally at odds about his videogame playing habits. She said she once threw away an Xbox, but has “now accepted his choice to compete professionally.”

A million dollars can be remarkably persuasive at times, it turns out.

“Now I’ve proved to her that I can do stuff, I’m really happy,” Ashman said.
Another interesting thing about Ashman’s second-place finish: he was competing with a controller instead of mouse and keyboard. As Polygon reports, he’s a member of what’s being called the “controller gang” – a group of Fornite pros who prefer controllers over the traditionally-favored mouse and keyboard setup.

In any event, Ashman is returning home from New York significantly wealthier, but his mother told the BBC he’s not much of a materialist – he’s likely to spend the money on a “lifetime of Uber Eats,” she said.

The solo tournament will take place later today, beginning at 13:00 EDT / 18:00 BST. The top prize in that phase of the tournament is $3 million.