Fortnite
Fortnite
Did Ninja leak his move to YouTube Gaming after Mixer’s death?
Steven Rondina
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’ stint as a streaming free agent might be coming to an end in the near future. On July 7, Ninja’s YouTube channel had a live stream scheduled to take place later in the day. The listing was later removed from the page, leaving many to believe that Ninja had unintentionally let slip a test run of a YouTube Gaming stream. This would likely mean that Ninja is …
Fortnite
Fortnite to host event discussing racism in America on July 4
Steven Rondina
Fortnite is set to go in a very different direction for its next live event. While Fortnite events are often theatrical in nature, treating fans to things like mech battles and musical concerts, the next one will be much more serious. Fortnite is presenting a discussion on race in America entitled “We The People.” The event is being held in conjunction with OPUS UNITED, hosted by Van Jones. Jemele Hill, …
Fortnite
Mixer shutting down soon, shroud and Ninja can stream on Twitch
Steven Rondina
Microsoft-owned streaming platform Mixer is officially done. The Verge interviewed Microsoft gaming head Phil Spencer, who stated that the platform will be folded on July 22. The company is now looking to pin its hopes on a partnership with Facebook Gaming, which injected new life into its own efforts in the realm of video game content. The news was then confirmed on Twitter by Mixer. Mixer Partners, streamers, and community …
Fortnite
The Fortnite player count continues to grow in 2020
Olivia Richman
Ever since Fortnite was released in July 2017, the game’s immense playerbase has only continued to increase. With colorful animation, fun cosmetics, and an addictive battle royale mode, Fortnite has become one of the most popular video games in recent years thanks to its constant presence in mainstream media. The push to make Fortnite mainstream has been successful due to such personalities as streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. The blue-haired Fortnite …
Fortnite
Shroud goes off on aim assist being wrong in competitive games
Olivia Richman
Controller versus keyboard and mouse is an ongoing debate in esports that often gets competitive players heated. Fortnite is the most outspoken community when it comes to this issue, though crossplay is also available for Call of Duty and a few other competitive titles. Games like Fortnite attempted to give controller players a better chance against keyboard and mouse players by allowing for “aim assist,” a function through which the …
Fortnite
Fortnite data miner claims aim assist was nerfed, no word from Epic
Olivia Richman
Keyboard and mouse Fortnite players on Windows and Mac may possibly have reason to rejoice. Trusted Fortnite data miner Lucas7Yoshi has found some new information that could potentially mean aim assist is being nerfed on PC. He said that a simple restart of your game should apply the changes uncovered. A hotfix was deployed adjusting aim assist on Windows and MacI do not know what these values exactly mean, but …
Fortnite
Ninja bans ZexRow from Ninja Battles tournament for insults
Olivia Richman
After swearing and insulting other competitors, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins decided to ban Anthony “ZexRow” Colandro from future Ninja Battle events. Ninja announced his own Fortnite tournament series on May 28. The six-week online competition features an $80,000 prize pool each week. After only the first week of play, one pro player has already been banned from future editions of the event. Team SoloMid’s ZexRow had 59 points at the end …
Fortnite
Fortnite’s rarest skin, Recon Expert, back in shop for limited time
Olivia Richman
Epic Games made Fortnite’s rarest skin of all time, Recon Expert, available for purchase in stores for about two minutes on the morning of May 27. Usually, Epic changes their rotating selection of available skin offerings at night. But for some reason, it seemed to go live at the wrong time, allowing a few lucky players to grab the rare skin early. Others were not as fortunate, getting cut off …
Ninja calls follower “brainwashed” after he’s accused of toxicity
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Even thought Tyler “Ninja” Blevins left Twitch for Mixer, his friendship with streamers from his former home are still strong as ever. While they may not play Fortnite together as much as they used to, Ninja is still close with fellow popular streamers, DrLupo, TimTheTatman and CouRageJD. The four famous content creators often play a variety of games together, sharing jokes and laughs along the way. When a Mixer viewer …
NICKMERCS explains his recent break from streaming on Twitch
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Twitch streamer Nick “NICKMERCS” Kolcheff has long been one of the most popular streamers on the platform. To many people’s surprise, a report earlier this year showed that NICKMERCS wasn’t just a famous face on Twitch, but also one of the most successful when it comes to earnings. According to a study by Little Loans, the FaZe Clan Fortnite streamer was making even more than Turner “Tfue” Tenney and Herschel …
Fortnite will be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X at launch
Steven Rondina
Fortnite
Developer Epic Games has made Fortnite available on almost every conceivable platform, and they aren’t going to stop that now. The publisher announced that the wildly popular battle royale will be available on “next-gen consoles.” Though it did not explicitly name the consoles, odds are that Epic is referring to the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. “Today we’re excited to confirm that Fortnite will be headed to next-generation …
Is Kirby coming to Fortnite? Party Royale trailer gives new clues
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Fortnite recently revealed their new Party Royale mode, which takes away the closing circle that makes rotation such an intense part of the original battle royale format. But it wasn’t the new mode that had people all over the internet talking about the trailer: it was the Kirby sighting. Kirby can first be seen at the start of the trailer, possibly dancing near the bottom of the screen where Epic …
TimTheTatman continues Fortnite controller debate with a big insult
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Cross-platform play in Fortnite hasn’t united the gaming community like Epic thought it would. Instead, it started an ongoing debate with seemingly no end over keyboard and mouse versus controller players. The competitive community has been consistently divided on this topic, with many keyboard and mouse players claiming that they’re not only superior in their mechanics, but that Epic’s attempt to make controller players feel equal has backfired. Keyboard and …
Epic Games cancels Fortnite World Cup, announces new schedule
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
The 2019 Fortnite World Cup, Epic’s first major venture in competitive Fortnite, broke all kinds of viewership and prize money records last year. Kyle “Bugha” Giersdork’s $3 million first place finish was even discussed on late-night television. Unfortunately, this year’s World Cup has officially been canceled, according to the Fortnite Competitive Twitter account. Last month we said we would provide our evolving 2020 competitive roadmap. Today we wanted to provide updates …
Tfue says playing Fortnite is now unfair because of aim assist
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
It looks like Turner “Tfue” Tenney may be looking to switch to Valorant after getting fed up with how “unfair” his original game of choice has been lately. In a recent stream, Tfue started to get really frustrated after being eliminated by a “controller player with a fucking drum gun.” He immediately called Forntite “dog shit” before going into a longer rant on why the game that made him famous …
Ninja flexes his Mixer money at haters harassing him in Fortnite
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
When Tyler “Ninja” Blevins first moved to Mixer, the Fortnite streamer’s fans and haters alike wondered what had prompted him to leave Twitch. He was making millions off of the platform’s subscription service, not to mention a lot of other cash that was rolling in. His wife had hinted that his move was related to Twitch’s restrictive contract terms and the platform’s refusal to loosen their grip on Ninja’s sponsorship …
Ninja continues dominating Mixer, hits 3 million followers
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Fortnite superstar Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has reached 3 million followers on Mixer. “Just surpassed 3 million followers on Mixer over the last 8 months. I cannot thank you enough for the support you all continue to give me with this leap of faith huge switch in my streaming career. Love you guys,” Ninja tweeted. When Ninja first moved to Mixer, he quickly became the most-viewed and most-followed content creator on …
Grenades removed from Fortnite due to game-breaking glitch
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Per usual, gamers can’t have nice things. Epic Games has temporarily disabled grenades in Fortnite after some gamers discovered discovered a game-breaking bug where they could throw more than one grenade at once. “Due to an issue, the Grenade has been temporarily disabled in Battle Royale. We’ll provide an update when the Grenade has been re-enabled,” Fortnite tweeted out. The maximum grenades people can carry in battle royale mode is six. …
Myth frustrated with Fortnite’s lack of new content, communication
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Team SoloMid’s Ali “Myth” Kabbani is back with another Fortnite rant. It doesn’t seem like Fortnite pro Myth is too excited with the way Fortnite is going or with how Epic handles updates and communication with their playerbase. On a podcast hosted by Mizkif, Myth decided to open up about all his frustrations with the popular battle royale. When someone asked if Myth liked playing the same game every day, …
Breaking down Ninja’s net worth in 2020
Olivia Richman
Fortnite
Fortnite personality Tyler “Ninja” Blevins is one of the most popular and successful streamers in the world. He had the most followers on Twitch and broke multiple records before announcing a move to Mixer last year. But what does all of that amount to money-wise? According to Esportspedia, Ninja has an estimated net worth of $10 million. Only in recent years have people been able to make a living streaming …
Fortnite has come a long way over the course of the game’s lifespan. What began as an upstart early-access title with base-building mechanics would eventually transform into the world’s most popular and lucrative video game, capturing the attention of millions upon millions of players across the world and entering into the mainstream cultural lexicon.
But how exactly did that happen? How did one of many games released by developer Epic Games manage to transform in real-time into something with such potential, and to what extent did Fortnite really grow? The answers are indicative of what it takes for a game to go from new and struggling to becoming a global phenomenon.
The original vision for Fortnite was very different compared to the game that is so widely popular today. Developers at Epic Games intended to create a game that would merge base-building mechanics with the popular shooting gameplay that the company was best known for, from its experience releasing such titles those found in the Unreal Tournament and Gears of War franchises.
While that vision was altered even prior to Fortnite’s initial release, with a darker creative look becoming brighter and more reminiscent of children’s cartoons, the first release of Fortnite did feature that original focus. Titled Fortnite: Saves the World, this was a paid early-access release that met moderate fanfare and player enthusiasm.
A follow-up release would do far better. That follow-up was Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play version of the game that featured the core mechanics and experience players most associate with the Fortnite name today. The battle royale game mode, thrown together in just a couple of months by developers, was at the time a relatively new concept. A multitude of players would be dropped onto one map to do battle with each other, accruing resources and weaponry in an open-world environment to better equip themselves for combat. Eventually, the game’s playable map size would shrink over time, forcing players to engage with each other until only one winning player was left standing.
It’s a simple concept, but in 2017 it was fresh and new. Players quickly flocked to try this early battle royale game, and within weeks of its free-to-play release, Fortnite Battle Royale was playing host to millions of players.
First and foremost, the success of Fortnite can be seen in the extreme revenue numbers generated by the game for maker Epic Games. Just a few short years after its release, Fortnite had already led to billions of dollars in revenue for Epic. This success was enough to send reverberations throughout the entire video game industry. Dozens of clones would follow, trying to recapture the battle royale magic that Fortnite had so successfully crystallized, but it proved difficult for most.
Money wasn’t the only marker of the game’s ascendance, however. Fortnite broached popular mainstream culture in a way that few video games ever have. Popular streamer and former Halo pro Tyler “Ninja” Blevins was at the fore of this wave of popularity, co-streaming with rap superstar Drake and appearing on numerous television talk shows to discuss the game and the craze surrounding it. Popular musicians beyond Drake also got involved with the game, as Travis Scott and Marshmello hosted live, in-game concerts to both popular and critical acclaim.
The Fortnite World Cup raised the game’s profile even further in some circles. Held at the famous Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City, the event awarded $3 million to 16-year-old phenom Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf, who then found himself paraded through mainstream media circles just as Ninja had been before him.
While its apex may have come and gone, Fortnite remains one of the most popular and successful games in the world today, continuing to play host to many millions of players while generating major revenues for Epic Games.
