Just when you thought your week couldn’t get any stranger, an ex-Fortnite pro posts a video of his alleged kidnapping—which seems to be a staged marketing stunt for a gambling site.
David “aqua” Wang is a former Fortnite World Cup champion who took home the title back in 2019 after placing first in the Duos category. Now, it looks like Wang has partnered with the controversial gambling website CSGOEmpire to stage a fake kidnapping on X (formerly Twitter) to garner attention and sell cases within CSGO.
Wang, who now streams on Kick, randomly disappeared from social media at the start of December. The former champion uses X to post on and off about Fortnite, so his two-month disappearance didn’t immediately raise alarm bells.
The debacle began just after Valentine’s Day when the official CSGOEmpire X account posted a photo claiming to have “kidnapped” someone tied to a chair. The phony kidnapping victim happens to be Wang, as he now seems to be pretending to promote the company’s cases against his will.
Mere days after CSGOEmpire posted the fake kidnapping photo, Wang returned to X by posting his own video where he promotes the partnership while acting anxious and scared. Throughout this video, an unknown man is standing behind a pixelated Wang as he delivers stilted information about the promotion, giving the entire situation an eerie vibe.
On top of the staged kidnapping and promotion, Wang’s account also responded to one of CSGOEmpire’s posts with a racial slur. The post was created by the gambling website to “celebrate” Black History Month, but featured many harmful and offensive stereotypes.
In response to this entire controversy, one user called out everyone involved with the scandal: “Framing these tweets as a ‘kidnapping’ either means you are complicit in CSGOEmpire’s pathetic social media campaign or you are stupid. C’mon man.”
Wang isn’t the only polarizing entity in this debacle, as CSGOEmpire is an incredibly controversial company that has caused large scandals in the past. During last year’s PGL Major in Copenhagen, “protesters” rushed the stage to interrupt gameplay and damage the trophy. It was later revealed that CSGOEmpire facilitated the protestors in an attempt to slander G2 Esports.
Following this revelation, many teams and casters immediately pulled out of CSGOEmpire’s $50,000 Cup that was scheduled right after the PGL Major. Eventually, the event was canceled outright and CSGOEmpire has had a horrid reputation since. Interestingly, one of the protestors who stormed the stage is now standing behind Wang in all these promotional videos, proving that this stunt is another corporate manifestation meant to generate clicks and attention.
“Just when you thought CSGOEmpire couldn’t get more cringe and a bigger embarrassment to the Counter-Strike community, they decide to move on to Fortnite,” another user posted in response to a post summarizing the events. Thankfully, Fortnite appeals to a younger audience than CSGO, so they won’t be able to facilitate gambling over cosmetics within the popular battle royale.
Even though this marketing tactic is senseless, dangerous, and downright offensive, it looks like both parties are keeping up the promotion as they continue to act out this strange fake kidnapping.
Published: Feb 20, 2025 06:46 pm