
How Ninja become gaming's first crossover star - pmcpinto
http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/24710688/fortnite-legend-ninja-living-stream
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cuboidGoat
These twitch streamers and their relationship to their audiences reminds me a
lot of William Gibson's simstim celebrities in the Neuromancer trilogy.

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baxtr
_Every day, people tune in by the hundreds of thousands to watch him play, and
he 's making bank doing it. The most commonly reported figure is $500,000 a
month. Blevins suggests the number is closer to seven figures._

And then later:

 _" Until my family is taken care of. Say this ends tomorrow, we don't have
enough for the rest of our lives. I tell Jess, 'Honey, we're not going to have
that much quality time this year, or even next year. But if we do this right
and I continue to grind for a couple more years, we can set ourselves up, and
our family and our family's family, for the rest of our lives.'"_

Even though he makes so much money I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. He
doesn’t seem to have a good, relaxed life. One vacation in 8 years while
making 500k+ a month? Why...?

~~~
woolvalley
It's pretty god damn smart, work hard for 10 years and have generational
wealth for the rest of your god damn life. He knows that this was a lucky
break of fame, and as celebrities rise and fall with fads.

It's way better than most startups.

~~~
ndh2
There's got to be some boundary, though. The guy streams every single day.
Doesn't even take one weekday off. That's not healthy.

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Doxin
Working until you're 80 isn't healthy either. given the choice I'd rather do
10 years with no free time than 60 years with only a tiny bit of free time.

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savethefuture
"I play Fortnite every day, Mom. It's my dream to play Fortnite." \- What a
world we live in now a days...

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BLKNSLVR
Oh the stress of modern celebrity! I'd give you all my pity but I already
spent it raising children and paying a mortgage and working for sociopaths.

Having said that, now I fucking well WANT to play Fortnite every day

~~~
sky_rw
Heaven is being able to play fortnite every day. Hell is _having_ to play
fornite every single day.

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BLKNSLVR
I'm not seeing any "have to" in any of this anywhere, except in the woe-is-me
voluntary victim handbook.

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thecatspaw
He has to play fortnite just like we have to go to our jobs. Sure, we can just
not show up anymore, but that will loose you your income.

Of course, he has a bit more flexibility, but so does an employee who yields
the company a million each month, and takes home half of that.

~~~
BLKNSLVR
"a bit more flexibility" and "half a million take-home per month" aren't in
the same ball park (to paraphrase Pulp Fiction: it ain't even the same sport)

Apologies if I'm coming off as offensive or patronising, but I really truly
cannot see what there could possibly be to complain about that isn't entirely
within their control to change.

I think there's a bigger picture that you might not be stepping back far
enough to look at.

~~~
thecatspaw
What I tried to say was, if you have an employee who yields you half a million
each month, you're probably not gonna fire him if he says "hey im gonna take
off tomorrow".

But yes, they obviously can just not stream for a single day, but it costs
him. According to the article, not streaming a day looses him 15,000 subs
(assuming the default cut of 50% of 5$) thats 37k lost, per day, and it adds
up.

Ninja seems to be aware that his stream wont live forever, that his fame is on
a timer, like anyone on the internet. So he's trying to save up as much money
as he can, to support his family after his fame dies down.

Lets be generous and assume $200k spent per year for rent/mortage, food and
all that fun stuff. A day streaming means he has 2 months less buffer, before
his money would run out. 4 Months, if you're spending 100k a year.

Choosing between 1 day of work, and 4 months of work, seems pretty easy to me,
even if that single day sucks.

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charleyma
Toxicity in gaming + virtual communities (particularly against women) seems to
be an issue that no company has a great grasp on.

I recently gave Fortnite a try and ended up turning chat off due to relentless
abuse by someone that sounded like they were pretty young. It made me a bit
sad - I met some of my best friends growing up online in irc channels playing
CS, WoW, etc - not sure if I would be able to do so today.

Also Polygon article where Ninja talks about why he doesn't stream with female
gamers (for whatever reason espn didn't link...) -

[https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/11/17675738/ninja-twitch-
fema...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/8/11/17675738/ninja-twitch-female-
gamers)

~~~
tbiwiti
That article is really strange to me. On one hand, he's probably 100% right.
There's no other way to avoid rumors and jokes like that. On the other hand,
that's a completely unacceptable excuse to bar women from something. Can
someone refuse to hire a female secretary out of respect for their wife?

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Bizarro
That's a dumb analogy and bordering on being disingenuous. He's not barring
women from something...you know that. And the people that he plays with are
not his employees. You know that too.

~~~
tbiwiti
Getting to stream with Ninja would have a large, direct effect on their
income, not to mention the promotional aspect.

But sure, lets instead imagine a male-only social club that directly promotes
the business and career interests of it's members. That would get shut down
_real_ fast.

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hnzix
If a pro tennis player declined to play in mixed doubles to shield their
spouse from paparazzi gossip, would you call them sexist?

~~~
roel_v
What Joe Random would call them isn't so interesting, but the legal question
is (can be, I haven't had my coffee yet...)

