Ninja's Monthly Earnings Top $500,000 Streaming Fortnite on Twitch
What a time to be alive.
Tyler "Ninja" Blevins is having a pretty great month. The Twitch streamer has been catapulted to the top of the live streaming platform on the back of his excellent Fornite streams and star-studded live stream featuring Drake. Fortnite Mania is here and CNBC sat down to talk with Ninja about his newfound success.
Tyler '@Ninja' Blevins says he makes $500,000 a month playing video games. pic.twitter.com/jk9fvOiNZV
— CNBC (@CNBC) March 19, 2018
"I think that I offer a combination of high-tier game play that they really can't get with a lot of other content creators. It's very difficult to be one of the very best at a video game," Blevins said. Ninja went on to highlight the importance of Twitch in present day gaming culture.
CNBC asked Ninja what he thought was the driving force of the current Fornite Mania. "The fact that it is free to play is super huge, and it's already across all the [major] platforms," Ninja said. "Just accessibility and how friendly the game is, they are just hitting every single mark perfectly."
It is great to see a gamer like Ninja who is talented, hard-working and fun to watch be rewarded. Fortnite continues to draw massive amounts of coverage and attention. Fortnite mobile just launched, and Ninja even mentioned rumors of a version for Nintendo Switch being in the works. Keep it locked on Shacknews for all the Fortnite news and guides.
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replyAsif Khan posted a new article, Ninja's Monthly Earnings Top $500,000 Streaming Fortnite on Twitch
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But he doesn't eat lunch.
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You racist. John Fortt has been a tech correspondent on CNBC for 8 years!
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That kind of unproductive income needs to be taxed like 80% and the money put back into education and public health.
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This is a special case because it creates almost no value for society as a whole. Maybe it should be treated as a capital gains or something. I dunno, seems obscene.
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Capital gains would actually be taxed less...
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literally like movies and television?
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And all sports, music, theater and fine art. And presumably we should be taxing the person who chooses to be entertained. Why should we all be free to play games when we could be "contributing"? We should pay the difference!
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Are you guys seriously trying to define what content is and isn't acceptable for the youths of today? Can you not just picture your parents doing literally the exact same thing about South Park, The Simpsons, (going further back) MTV, videogames in general, etc etc?
What is the difference if ppl like to watch a videogame being played vs any other kind of content?-
i clarified in my followup that no meaningful distinction can be drawn well enough to legitimately divide content. especially at the level the IRS would need.
do i still think the fact people are paid to play games on streams is depressing? yes. video games possess one of the lowest barriers for entry. individuals still prefer to watch than play.
i accept that it may be a function of generational divide, but i also think a lot of meaningful divisions have occurred in the last 10-20+ years that are fundamentally different from years past, altering the way humans interact and operate far more radically than ever before.
i believe the affinity for this content is a direct byproduct of ever shrinking attention spans. its the ultimate push-button-dispense-diarrhea-content system. i think its only going to get worse in this regard, and i am entirely content with missing that boat.
humanity is going through a serious shift rn. it is to be seen whether this is for the better.-
Nah, I think you're just getting older and doing what all old people do: think the younger generation is somehow different from yours and is going into the shitter. Your kids will think the same thing when they get to your age.
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you’re entitled to that opinion. there are legitimate and measurable changes happening to society right now as a byproduct of the internet, machine learning leveraged for ad targeting, and the trivially low barrier for launching content globally.
humans are going to be changing in ways to this that we havent had to change - at least not this radically.
dismissing it as strictly age-related is your right, but it’s a comically low-effort retort and very intentionally myopic approach to looking back at the consequences of the role technology and advertising play in our lives.-
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I dont see how watching someone play a video game is any more ADD inducing than me watching knight rider and the a-team as a kid.
You could argue tv shows are worse, you have commercials, quick cuts, constant explosions and drama, your brain gets more thirst for that action. Watching a video game, you're more engaged because you know the game, you figure out new ideas on how to play the game, and in a way you play the game in the back of your mind. And yes there are people who watch not for the game but for the streamer to get that social feeling, but I dont think thats any worse than me refreshing shacknews 100 times a day :/
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how can you guys not realise people had this exact opinion about novels, and rock and roll as well...
morally corrupt youth like _______ and ________, it's all bad and the world is going to SHIT-
its not a moral issue at all. theres nothing morally at issue with enjoying the content.
i clarify in a response above that i believe humanity is at an inflection point. we are becoming different types of organisms, or perhaps instead we have perfected the systems for exploiting the pleasure centers of our brains.
the next 20 years are going to be wild.-
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Yep. The great arbiters of societal value pop up to condemn the new and different from time to time.
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Where does MST3K fall in all this. Do I have ADD now because I watched people watch a movie when I was younger?
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Same exact reason people like to watch sports. Not hard to grasp why people are entertained by watching other good players.
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I watch professionals play sports while others commentate on it. Seems pretty similar. Replace athlete with gamer.
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^ PUBG fan
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Ok. Just rethought this. Bad idea.
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Don't NFL players generally make significantly less than their counterparts in the NBA and MLB because of salary caps?
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Makes sense (sorta).
I wonder how NFL players do for side earnings by comparison.
I know Cam Newton and The Gronk and a whole host of other NFL players have been in a fair number of commercials etc but it seems like NBA players still are in a league of their own for that stuff.-
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lol I was just wondering why node was singling out football... unless he's talking about international footballers in which case I don't know anything
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They get about 50% of the revenue, which is roughly what MLB and NBA get as well. They need to figure out how to get more guaranteed contracts, which MLB and NBA excel at.
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Pinko commie!
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brow buttons
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smdever cannot, and I think we can all agree that is the true socioeconomic tragedy here.
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i would tax income of that magnitude heavily regardless of its source
society is completely on tilt right now as we divide into haves and have nots. humans deserve better than this.
it really only adds insult to injury that producing such vapid content generates so much revenue. a population desperate to consume content so as to more readily forget that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
/debbiedowner -
I would happily pay 70% on anything over 200k.
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wtf do you need 30% of all that money for??? are you being productive with it???
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That's really hard to believe.
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How about we just tax all rich people at higher rates? I know it's crazy but...
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Lucky for you it's in the hands of an adolescent looking fool who will probably spend it as fast as possible therefore disseminating it into the hands of others. Twitter down economics.
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Dude is amazingly good, but god damn, that game looks incredibly dumb being played at a high level. Random floating walls flying up as he's jumping on them.
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He is good, does Fortnite use any proper ELO or matchmaking system? Seems like 50% of servers are total plebs. The decent streamers basically just meme almost all of their kills and with a free game it seems like it’s just a bunch of chumps and a few good players.
Not trying to diss on ninja or any other decent streamer, but this feels like pre pubg ranking days when you’d get people stringing like 6+ solo chicken dinners and then they pushed in ranking and that all but went away.
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They're targeting Ninja with those free subs b/c he dominates Fortnite viewership when he's online. Drake found him on Instagram, then looked up his YouTube channel, then found his Twitch. So it's a lot less about luck and more about Ninja putting himself in a position to succeed by being the first streamer with a decent following to 100% commit to playing Fortnite.
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