A 27-year-old online gamer who goes by the alias “Ninja,” made $500,000 a month to the tune of $10 million last year playing video games and as an Internet personality, all while streaming himself on YouTube and Twitch.
Tyler Blevins, 27, a.k.a. Ninja or NinjasHyper, is earning a huge living simply from playing video games and streaming himself live. Not only is he earning massively for himself by playing games, but he’s helping the creator of the game Fortnite, Epic Games, as well.
The company made a gargantuan $3 billion profit this year, due in a very large part to the popularity of Ninja himself.
Ninja knows that if he doesn’t constantly keep in front of his fans, he risks losing his audience. Along with his wife, who is also his manager, they have been taking note of how many subscribers they lose and how much money they aren’t earning when he is away from the camera.
So at this point where his career is going full steam, they’ve determined that there’s very little time to relax. Ninja says he spends 12 hours a day playing video games. He estimates that works out to about 4,000 hours/140 days of playing Fortnite in the past year.
Ninja earns over $500,000 a month between YouTube, Twitch, and corporate sponsors, which added up to a take of around $10 million last year.
The combination of his stellar video skills and 94,950 a Fortnite kills and his online personality have created a following of 20-million plus YouTube subscribers.
On Twitch, the online streaming TV platform with a strong emphasis on gaming, he has 12.5 million users. Of those, nearly 40,000 paid to watch him play Fortnite, with those fans selecting between three payment tiers of $4.99, $9.99 or $25 dollars a month.
However, the users don’t have to subscribe to watch him play. The payment amounts are much like donations. But Ninja still earns money through shared ad revenue on the platform.
Ninja says that he estimates that around 70% of his income is derived from these two services alone.
Ninja’s skills and personality have made him a stand out in the gaming world, along with his neon-red hair, all of which led to a rapid rise in popularity. He even landed on the cover of “ESPN The Magazine.”
Ninja has now attracted a number of corporate sponsors. The sponsorships account for the remaining 30% of his monthly income. Among the sponsors are Samsung, Red Bull and Uber Eats.
