Benjyfishy and MrSavage are two of the most popular Fortnite pro players, with a ton of experience and success in the game. But the rise to pro gamer is not an easy one – as discovered by the player’s respective parents Anne Fish and Johnny Troset Andersen.
The pair have just released a new Fortnite esports guide for players and parents, and Anne has also published a book all about Benjy’s journey in esports specifically. Dom Sacco drops from the battle bus into these two books and shares his opinion in this review.
Esports News UK was supplied a copy of each book and has helped with their promotion
Build It Like benjyfishy & MrSavage: The Unofficial Fortnite Esports Guide for Players and Parents
- Authors: Anne Fish and Johnny Troset Andersen
- Pages: 234
- Released: Out now
- Formats: Print, ebook
- Publisher: DeeperDown Publishing
- RRP: £12 (ebook), £21.99 (print)
- Buy: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Book Depository
The first thing that strikes me about this book – both books in fact – is the quality of the pages. The bright colours, stylish layout and neat sections make this look more like a series of articles from a magazine special rather than a standard book.
With the latter, you might expect pages and pages of nothing but words, with perhaps eight or so in the middle dedicated to pictures. That’s not the case here – each page is pleasing to the eye and there’s at least one image for every two pages. With the text edited into this magazine-like style, it also makes the content digestable and easy to pick up and jump to a specific section.
Build It Like benjyfishy & MrSavage: The Unofficial Fortnite Esports Guide for Players and Parents does what it says on the tin – it covers a wide range of esports topics, from team organisations to tournaments, player equipment, social media tips, revenue streams, esports careers and so on.
You might think this would make for broad reading, but the content is regularly interspersed with interviews featuring successful names in esports and Fortnite, from NRG CEO Andy Miller, streamer Reddysh, 100 Thieves player manager Peter Rudi Pettersen and many more, and it also goes deeper than the usual ‘what is a tournament’ or ‘what is esports’ that you can find for free on the internet.
For example, Anne and Johnny talk about the challenges of attending a LAN esports event in another country – what to be aware of logistically, timing-wise and how players can properly prepare for a big occasion like the Fortnite World Cup, with valuable first-hand experience.
“This book fills a real gap in the market. There are a lot of parents out there that may not understand esports, or want to better know this world that their children or grandchildren might be into. I’ll be recommending this to anyone who wants to understand esports, especially parents of aspiring players.”
What this does is it creates a ‘show, don’t tell’ style of storytelling and content – an effective tool used well in journalism, for example. Guide books can sometimes feel condescending or patronising, but this is not the case with Build It Like Benjyfishy & MrSavage, because of its open and warm writing style. It’s easy to understand.
Players and Fortnite fans are well taken care of too. Benjy and MrSavage’s hardware, refresh rates and keyboards are listed, as well as their keybinds and more, as well as exercise, mental wellbeing, internet and streaming tips (including licensed music tips and Fortnite streaming settings) to help aspiring players get set up correctly. There are also regular quotes from the players, showing their personality and again tying into that ‘show, don’t tell’ writing style.
For example, Benjy says at one point: “If I could have a superpower, it would be teleportation so I could teleport to every region and play every cash cup on 0 ping.”
If I had to choose, I’d say this book was more valuable for parents than players. Things like tax advice on esports prize winnings, a glossary of gaming terms and careers advice makes for essential reading for those who want to learn about this space.
For me, the book fills a real gap in the market. There are a lot of parents out there that may not understand esports, or want to better get to know this world that their children or grandchildren might be into. I will definitely be recommending this to anyone who wants to understand esports, especially parents of aspiring players.
There are some crossovers with Benjy’s book, for instance the info on travelling and LANs, but overall this is packed full of valuable info for parents and others, both general and specialist. For players and Fortnite fans, they might be a little more interested in Benjy’s book (see below).
Let’s Go! benjyfishy’s Fortnite Journey
- Author: Anne Fish
- Pages: 190
- Released: Out now
- Formats: Print, ebook
- Publisher: Fish Emedia
- RRP: £10.99 (ebook), £19.99 (print)
- Buy: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Book Depository
Benjyfishy’s Fortnite Journey is more for fans of Benjy and Fortnite, but as it’s written by his mother Anne ‘mamabenjyfishy’ Fish (now an influencer in her own right), parents are also a good secondary audience.
This book follows the story of Benjy more closely than Build It, and is more personal to him. It details his background and how he went from taking part in bowling tournaments at three years old to becoming one of the UK’s – and the world’s – best Fortnite players.
Like Build It, this is very easy on the eye and fun to read. There are fewer words on each page, lots of bright, snazzy colours and layouts, and this again makes it simple to understand. It gives it a ‘pick up and play’ feel, kind of like hopping into a few games of Fortnite for a quick burst of content. These books never feel like a chore to read, unlike some other lengthy biographies out there.
No, it’s not the most detailed book in the world. But it’s not supposed to be. Benjy is still only 17 years old – his full biography, should he choose to publish one later on in his life, would be more comprehensive and storied. The lad is young and has his whole life ahead of him, and this book does a good job of capturing the life of a young pro gamer, how he rose to prominence and the challenges along the way.
Let’s Go! covers Benjy’s life and the small island community in Surrey where he lives. It recalls the all-nighters, winning his first tournaments online and early gaming history, with his older brother Charles playing Banjo Kazooie on the Nintendo 64 with Anne.
Interestingly, perhaps if things were a little different, Benjy could have become a League of Legends or CSGO pro player.
It’s official: This book confirms that League was Benjy’s favourite game. He got to Platinum 1 at just 12 years old (dear readers this makes me feel so bad at the game), and in CSGO he reached the Supreme rank. He also visited the CLG offices and saw the LCS trophy there as part of a visit to the States.
But it was Fortnite that captured his attention and saw him go down a road that would see him signed by NRG.
“Let’s Go! is a solid insight into a pro player’s life. It details how a knee injury turned Benjy to gaming, why he decided to stick to a humble ‘no ego’ approach to pro gaming, his schedule, and it’s full of ‘Fishy Facts’, bitesize pieces of info that help the reader get to know the player.”
It also mentions how Benjy and fellow UK Fortnite pros Wolfiez and Mongraal have been home-schooled, and challenges Benjy has faced, including his PC suddenly shutting down at an OCE Cash Cup, and Anne racing around to get a headset for Benjy last minute at Dreamhack Winter 2019.
I think other esports book publishers can take note from the layout I mentioned earlier. For a game like Fortnite which has a young demographic, you don’t want a 400-page book with a standard layout and a tiny font. This makes it easy to read for kids as well as parents – I’m certainly going to encourage my wife (and my young children when they’re old enough) to read this, I think it’d be inspiring for all of them.
But I think what I like most about these books is they touch the heart of esports – community, competition and companionship – captured by this motherly advice from Anne to NRG players Clix and UnknownArmy after they had a falling out.
“Trying to repair a friendship is a bit like trying to land a triple-edit one pump,” she says. “It is hard work, frustrating, and can take more than one attempt.”
These parents get esports, they are one of us, and with these books I think we’ll see more parents better help their kids become the esports personalities of the future. I look forward to reading their books too.
Esports News UK was supplied a copy of each book and has helped with their promotion
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
