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Fortnite Streaming and the Chapter 2 Recovery

By Paul Benjamin

Paris Games Week 2019 : Press Day At Porte De Versailles In Paris
Paris Games Week 2019 : Press Day At Porte De Versailles In Paris / Chesnot/Getty Images

Streamers have taken the world by storm. When we think of Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, and his popularity, it is evident streamers are here to stay. Although streaming has been around for a decade, the popularity has exploded with Ninja and others playing Fortnite.

With the epic rise of Fortnite came a slew of streamers wanting to cash in on the craze. Streamers like Tfue, Nickmercs, and CourageJD have had massive growth within the last two years, and so has their bank account.

Four ways Twitch streamers make money are donations from fans, paid subscriptions (costing $4.99 per month), ad revenue, and sponsorships.

Streamers, or just Fortnite gamers, can also make money playing in big-time tournaments. Here are the top 5 players who earned the most prize money:

  1. Kyle 'Bugha' Giersdorf (USA) – $3,062,966 / £2,377,259
  2. Harrison 'psalm' Chang (USA) – $1,868,800 / £1,450,431
  3. David 'Aquav2' Wang (Austria) – $1,790,207 / £1,389,433
  4. Emil 'Nyhrox' Pedersen (Norway) – $1,513,176 / £1,174,421
  5. Shane 'EpikWhale' Cotton (USA) – $1,297,366 / £1,006,924

That's right, Fortnite is so popular that the total prize money for these gamers is in the millions.

Back to Ninja, he has made $157,576 from tournaments alone. But his streaming has made him significantly more money. It is believed he earns upwards of $500,000 per month.

Although streaming Fortnite on Twitch was great, there were two major changes that led to a decline for the site. The first involves Ninja, where he made a deal with the Microsoft-owned Mixer streaming service. Besides the jump over, Ninja still plays with streamers on Twitch. The second reason for the decline involves popular player Tfue. He claimed to have had a depressive period and expressed his unhappiness in streaming Fortnite. Tfue has come back to streaming on Twitch, but he does not stream as often as he used to.

Those developments happened during Season 10 of Fortnite, when the game started to feel like it was getting stale. Epic Games, which created Fortnite, was getting criticism for months because the game's map became too familiar with players. They wanted something more fresh.

For two days in mid-October, Fortnite shut down their game to work on technical improvements. What came out of it was a brand new map snd special features like fishing. Through the decline, Fornite still had esports tournaments and crossover events.

Fortnite now has that feel of a brand new experience, and the streaming viewing numbers are still in good shape. Let's hope that Chapter 2 doesn't get as stale as chapter one's season ten.

Photo Courtesy of Getty Images