Are You Not Entertained? 2018

“Are you not entertained?”

Video game Streamer “Ninja” Reportedly Earning $500,000 Per Month

by : Dr. Adam Ruch | SAE Expression College | Republished from 2018

In March, gaming streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins claimed to be making $500,000 a month streaming Epic Games’ newest title, Fortnite, a new battle royale title that was released only a few weeks ago. At first blush, this statement seems almost absurd - making money by playing video games, especially such a new one, and especially at such an astonishing rate is enough to give anyone pause. It was no overnight success. Blevins is not the first game player to broadcast his entertaining videos to a wide audience, nor did he just plug in his first webcam yesterday.

The practice of ‘streaming’ is a relatively new, internet-enabled type of live broadcast, more like a live radio show than television. The host of a stream will select a game to play (the features of a “good” streaming game is an article of its own!), and using a service such as Twitch, will broadcast a real-time image of their screen to whoever tunes in. Usually, streamers will use some chroma-key (green screen) technology to overlay their, own, face into one corner of the screen, in order to interact with the game and audience simultaneously. There are hundreds of popular streamers, thousands of middling “B-list” celebrities, and uncountable aspiring hobbyists. Blevins is at the top of the scene, with nearly 6.2 million YouTube subscribers, 4.3 million followers on Twitch, and, according to Forbes magazine, 160,000 subscribers who pay $4.99 a month for premium access to Blevins’ channel. There is no doubt that Ninja has tapped into a rich vein, a zeitgeist that is making him very wealthy. The question is, why?

To understand streaming culture, Blevins’, own, history serves as a starting point. His gaming career began a decade ago as a professional Halo player, in the world of competitive eSports. These organized tournaments of various games (from strategy, scifi war games such as StarCraft, to 1vs1 fighters like Street Fighter, to first or third-person shoots such as Counter-Strike or Overwatch, draw audiences in much the same way as any other competitive game. The matches are organized between dedicated players who practice becoming as skilled as possible, in games that their viewers are deeply familiar with. The matches, then, are exciting due to the high-level play involved and relies on the audience’s familiarity with the game rules to create suspense and drama. The prize money and accolades are substantial, but as in traditional sports, fans aren’t enthusiastic about the paycheck the champions receive. They want to see their team win spectacularly.

For fans of action-packed third-person shooter games, Blevins represents a skilled master at the top of the field. His ability to navigate a battlefield, staying out of sight of his enemies, meanwhile manipulating various objects or items, and of course, hitting his targets, is extremely compelling. Much like Steph Curry’s ability to drain a half-court shot with barely a flick of the wrist, Blevins can run across the Fortnite landscape, building wooden ramps and platforms to create a path into the sky, and without hesitation, pop off a long-distance sniper rifle shot with unnerving accuracy.

His technical prowess is only a small part of the package, though. Successful stream channels are invariably entertaining in the same way a lively sports broadcast is. Instead of a third-party, though, it is the player himself providing colorful commentary, reacting to their own success or failure, and interacting in real-time with the audience. Compare this to the celebrations of players on the football field, when after a touchdown, the player leaps into the stands to give fans high-fives.

The interactive nature of the various platforms creates a community among the audience of a good streamer. The player himself will interact with fans, and by subscribing, donating or otherwise paying for it, truly dedicated fans can gain greater access to this nouvelle célébrité in exactly the same way a cashed-up fan might pay for ringside or season tickets, or buy an autographed ball.

Blevins seems to have found an extraordinarily successful groove: he is colorful, entertaining, very talented, and seems to walk a careful line of ‘family-friendly’ content. This is not always the case--some streamers are substantially more ‘blue’ than Blevins, and parents are well-advised to monitor their younger children’s consumption of YouTube or Twitch streamers. Even if the game itself is child-friendly (Minecraft, for example), the streaming personality might not be. Consider if Howard Stern were to narrate an otherwise innocuous volleyball game.

The combination of competition, unpredictability, and personality have converged in online streaming culture. The interactive foundation of the web not only allows for bilateral communication between audience and streamer but also collective reciprocity among the audience community itself. It’s also incredibly easy to just give it a try, as easy as https://www.twitch.tv/ ninja in a web browser.

So next time someone asks “Why would you pay to watch someone else play a videogame?” you might just ask why anyone pays to watch some tall people try to throw a ball through a hoop.

“Successful stream channels are invariably entertaining in the same way a lively sports broadcast is.

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