Ninja’s road to success

From the 99th floor of Willis Tower, one of the highest points in the midwest, a 27-year-old with blue hair is sitting in front of thousands of spectators and playing Fortnite as if he were still at home. Tyler Blevins, aka Ninja, is hosting his most ambitious Fortnite event to date, the Red Bull Rise Till Dawn tournament, but things don’t seem to go as planned. An overnight tournament that runs from dawn to dusk, Rise Till Dawn has everything any tournament needs to succeed: the world’s most popular game and top Twitch streamer. However, the tournament failed.

The tournament was delayed for almost 3 hours. Some computers in the tournament needed to download the latest Fortnite patch, and early games were affected by lag.

With his agility and natural nature, Blevins along with his teammate Ben “DrLupo” Lupo were able to keep viewership at an extremely high level, over 100,000 viewers. Tournament or not, Ninja and his company delivered an impressive performance.

Ninja is the reason people watch this tournament. “The entertainment, the reaction, getting those kills is just part of the energy and vibe that I bring,” Ninja told PC Gamer. “That’s what makes my streams so special.”

A year ago, Blevins was just another ordinary streamer, spending 10 hours a day, 7 days a week just to pay for his life. But over the past few months, Ninja has hosted his first major Fortnite tournament at the Esports Arena in Las Vegas, beating Twitch’s streaming records consistently, and making national headlines after playing alongside him. Famous Canadian rapper Drake. Most recently, after a week of live streaming from the Lollapalooza music festival, Ninja became a Twitch streamer with 10 million followers.

What’s even more surprising is how all these titles feel like they’re all just distant memories – Blevins worked nonstop, 10 hours a day as if no one had know him. Perhaps his own working style will be able to help him continue to reach even further in the future, even when Fortnite is no longer the most popular game.

“I definitely won’t sink with my ship,” Ninja told PC Gamer. “I’ve learned my lesson from all the Halo titles I’ve played, from PUBG, to H1Z1. I’m not saying those titles aren’t good, just that their “golden time” is over. I feel sad for the players who are still attached to those games, but I won’t go down with my ship.”

Blevins has taken big steps to ensure his success will last, even if it’s not as epic as it is now. He secured his lucrative partnership and positioned himself to attract a large audience when they started using Twitch.

While other streamers have had similar booms, like streamer named 2017 gamer of the year, DrDisrespect, Ninja has turned his success into a medium by partnering with Epic Games and Red Bull Esports for big events.

He’s almost too big to fail at the moment. Some of the blunders have been controversial, like Blevins’ use of a racist phrase when he sang along to a rap during a stream last March, (a mistake that could have ruined the careers of many others). must stop) seems to have been completely forgotten a few months later. Blevins issued a quick apology, saying it was his responsibility to keep his streams accessible to everyone but he failed in that case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPusvdzeS_MORE

During the E3 event, Ninja led Epic’s 2018 Fortnite Celebrity Pro-Am tournament at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles. While Blevins and his partner, EDM artist Marshmello, despite winning the tournament, he also lost something. Over 40,000 followers left Ninja’s channel during his two-day absence.

Those are huge numbers — even if it’s only a fraction of Blevins’ total followers. Although Ninja is now in a more “safer” position with countless sponsorship deals, it is worrisome that losing a large number of followers in a short period of time is a serious problem. important to every streamer, and having to be online every day to ensure these numbers are really hard to come by. You won’t be able to “relieve stress” even for just one day, let alone vacation trips.

“For us, streaming is basically everyday life. It’s hard to have a personal life, you have to eat your meal in front of the camera, and I could lose more than 100 subscribers a day if I wasn’t online,” says Janet Rose aka. called “xChocoBars”, a rising streamer with over 3,000 subscribers. “No one today can match Ninja even though he still has to face all the difficulties we face.”

Being successful on Twitch is a battle everyone faces, and a single mistake like changing your schedule or not streaming for a day can cost you hundreds to thousands of followers. track. That’s the main reason why you’ll want to find sources of profit and a secure job outside of Twitch, like what Ninja is doing right now.

Blevins’ success went even further than he imagined. Quite a few other streamers often group with him every day. “CNDthe3rd” and “DrLupo”, while both are popular streamers, their viewership both fluctuated while playing with Ninja.

“I classify this as one of the weak points of my career,” Lupo told PC Gamer. “Meeting Tyler in a corner in Pochinki [trong PUBG] and kill him with a classic grenade throw.” Lupo and Blevins became good friends after playing a few games of Fortnite and PUBG together, both of which have become popular streamers on Twitch.

The streamer duo often appears at events together, and the two have both raised more than $2.7 million for St. Judes Children before the GuardianCon event begins. Blevins also received a $100,000 donation during his stream from an anonymous sponsor.

Lupo attributes Blevins’ success to his own dedication and skill.

“Twitch is designed in such a way that smaller streamers will be battered, there is more opportunity for those who are at the top. The layout of Twitch and Youtube makes it quite difficult to be discovered. When someone goes to Twitch for the first time, they see someone there playing top games and stop right there.”

Ninja also had similar thoughts. “If you’re the first to get into that game, you’ll get the audience that’s looking for that game, because they’ll find you.” I said. “Once you’re buried by other streamers, it’s really hard to find. I was in a similar position.”

“But it’s not entirely unfair,” added Lupo. “These streamers have worked hard to get to where they are now.” If you flip through the front pages of the Fortnite section on Twitch, you’ll see familiar names like: Ninja, TimtheTatman, TSM_Myth, SypherPK, Tfue, and many other rising streamers.

Coupled with Blevins’ growing partnerships and other sources of revenue, Ninja can go beyond Twitch. He has teamed up with professional athletes Kyrie Irving and Marshawn Lynch on his own lingerie deal with lingerie brand PSD. Daily meals delivered by Uber Eats have resulted in a sponsorship deal. Live streaming for 10 to 12 hours a day is almost impossible for those trying to develop their personal brand, especially when the events appear to pile up. Moving outside of the streaming world is inevitable.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this success, with Fortnite,” Blevins said. “My success is partly due to my luck as the first person to start streaming Fortnite seriously, and also partly due to my dedication. But anything in the world is possible, and we don’t know what the future holds.”

By PC Gamer