FaZe Clan uses an 11-year-old Fortnite player

The FaZe Fortnite team has been making headlines for the last week as more details emerge about their ongoing legal battle with Tfue. The finical aspects of the case are currently those dominating the conversation. However, a result of the increased scrutiny over the way FaZe treats its players is a reassessment of the ages of their youngest team members and their relationship to the team. FaZe’s Fortnite team has recently made additions of quite a few very young players. specifically, there has been FaZe H1ghSky1 and YoSway, who both joined the team earlier this year. These young players are undoubtedly talented. However, the morality of signing such young players is now coming under scrutiny.

The lawsuit between Tfue and Faze makes quite a few allegations about their treatment of players, but in a more matter of fact way, it has outed H1ghSky1 as being a bit younger than he was made out to be. At the time, FaZe claimed that the player was 13 years old. This is old enough to be employed in this kind of talent agency. However, some further digging in light of this lawsuit has revealed social media posts from his family celebrating the player’s fifth birthday in 2012. This would have made him 11 at the time of his signing and 12 now.

The takeaway from this is that FaZe deliberately covered up the age of the player to circumvent child safeguarding laws. The player is also a popular streamer with over 400,000 Twitch followers, despite being underage to stream. With his actual age now common knowledge, he will likely not be able to take part in the Fortnite World Cup which has a minimum age requirement. While the player wasn’t yet qualified, FaZe will have a hard time using this player in any tournaments with his age.

How does FaZe treat children?

The darker aspect of this revelation reflects not only on SH1ghSk1 but on other young Fortnite players like YoSway. Despite being talented individuals, it seems clear that there is at least a degree of manipulation and exploitation happening here. Tfue’s lawsuit has alleged that FaZe Clan pressured the player and his family into concealing his actual age.

The rest of the lawsuit alleges that FaZe pressured underage players into drinking, gambling, and living in premises that the organisation owns. These elements are proven. However, with the lies about players ages being uncovered and clear evidence of exploitative financial deals with talent, it is not too much of a stretch to believe that an 11-year-old professional Fortnite player might not be receiving the best financial advice from the clan.

The results of this lawsuit are going to have far-reaching ramifications for the future relationship between players and clans. With these latest revelations brought to life, this will hopefully extend to re-evaluating the relationship between Esports and child players. While children possessing the skill to compete at such a high level is impressive, there has to be an element of safeguarding that prevents the exploitation of minors for the sake of a Fortnite tournament.

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