Fortnite Player Clix Launches Fund for Aspiring Esports Pros

Cody Conrod, a 21-year-old professional Fortnite player widely recognized as Clix to his over 8 million Twitch followers, has established the Dr3amin Access Fund. This new initiative, formalized through a holding company launched on Thursday, aims to address the escalating costs associated with professional gaming by providing essential equipment to aspiring players. Conrod, who himself dropped out of eighth grade to pursue a career in esports, has previously distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gaming gear annually through a holiday giveaway. The Dr3amin Access Fund seeks to institutionalize these efforts. Fortnite, a globally popular battle royale video game developed by Epic Games, pits players against each other in customizable avatars on a dynamically shrinking map. The game's popularity has fueled a significant content creation ecosystem, with streamers on platforms like Amazon-owned Twitch showcasing their gameplay and generating viral short-form video clips. However, the increasing demand for high-performance computing hardware, driven in part by the massive data center buildout, has led to a surge in the prices of essential components such as computers, graphics processors, and memory chips. Conrod himself recommends a gaming setup capable of sustaining at least 120 frames per second, a requirement for GPU-intensive titles like Fortnite. Joost van Dreunen, a seasoned games industry researcher and adjunct assistant professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, has noted that even entry-level PCs, previously available for under $500, are becoming increasingly scarce. He stated that individuals beginning their careers or assembling their first gaming rigs face considerable challenges in acquiring necessary hardware and components. Conrod's own journey highlights these difficulties; his parents were unable to afford a high-end gaming computer when he began playing at age five. During the initial surge of Fortnite's popularity, which included Epic Games offering $100 million in tournament prize money, Conrod reportedly used a "worst of the worst" computer that could only manage 30 frames per second. He spent months petitioning his parents for a roughly $1,600 upgrade. The Dr3amin Access Fund intends to mitigate these financial barriers for a new generation of esports hopefuls, drawing inspiration from the philanthropic model of prominent content creator MrBeast.