Adam Furgang - Tyler Ninja Blevins: Twitchs Top Streamer with 11 Million+ Followers

For Calebplayer of Fortnite and one of Ninjas biggest fans

Published in 2020 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010

Copyright 2020 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Furgang, Adam, author.

Title: Tyler Ninja Blevins: Twitchs Top Streamer with 11 Million+ Followers / Adam Furgang.

Description: First edition. | New York: Rosen Central, 2020. | Series: Top video gamers in the world | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Audience: Grades 58.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018042725| ISBN 9781725346017 (library bound) |

ISBN 9781725346000 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: Blevins, Tyler, 1991 Juvenile literature. | Video gamers

BiographyJuvenile literature.

Classification: LCC GV1469.3.B58 F87 2020 | DDC 794.8092 [B] dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018042725

Manufactured in the United States of America

On the cover: Shown here at his Ninja Vegas 18 event, Tyler Blevins is one of the most successful video gamers of all time.

INTRODUCTION

O ne of the most famousand highest paide-sports video game stars in the world is Tyler Blevins. Blevins, known by his online alias, Ninja, is popular for playing the video game Fortnite, published by Epic Games. Blevins grew up playing video games, and he has competed in games such as Halo and Destiny. He truly rose to fame in 2017, when Fortnite was released. The most popular version of this free-to-play video game is a specific mode called Fortnite: Battle Royale. In this game, as many as 100 players play at once in a free-for-all competition, battling to the death to become the last player or group alive. Blevins started playing Fortnite soon after its release, and his skill and popularity rose quickly. By 2018, Blevins had 10.2 million followers on the video gamestreaming service Twitch and 16.4 million subscribers on YouTube. Blevins was also the first person in Twitch history to break 10 million followers.

Video game competitions have been popular since before the rise of YouTube and Twitch. Since the very beginnings of the industry in the early 1970s, gamers have played against one another in competitions. The first gaming competition ever held was called the Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics, which took place on October 19, 1972, at Stanford Universitys Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. There, a group of gamers gathered to play a video game titled Spacewar. At the time, reporter Stewart Brandwho also organized and participated in the competitionwrote an article for Rolling Stone magazine titled Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums. According to the Rolling Stone article, Spacewar consists of two humans, two sets of control buttons or joysticks, one TV-like display and one computer. Two spaceships are displayed in motion on the screen, controllable for thrust, yaw, pitch, and the firing of torpedoes. Whenever a spaceship and torpedo meet, they disappear in an attractive explosion.

Tyler Blevins went from playing video games with his father and older brothers to entertaining millions of followers under his Twitch handle, Ninja.

Since those early days of video games in the 1970s, the industry has been growing steadily. In 2017, the video game industry generated worldwide revenues of $108.4 billion. Video game competitions among professional gamers or celebrities are now referred to as e-sports. Millions of viewers watch and type comments on their screens as professionals are playing their favorite games. The e-sports industry has grown into its own multimillion-dollar business. Streaming video gameswhich is when someone plays a video game live onlinehas become its own form of entertainment. According to a Newzoo market report cited in an Amazon App blog by Emily Esposito Fulkerson, e-sports revenue jumped from $493 million in 2016 to $655 million in 2017. Newzoo estimates that global e-sports revenue could exceed $900 million in 2018.

Today, Blevins is one of the highest-paid e-sports stars in the world. He reportedly earns more than $500,000 a month from his Twitch partnership, subscriber donations, YouTube advertising, and sponsors, including the energy drink company Red Bull. Aside from his skills playing Fortnite, Blevins is also a very entertaining personality to watch. With his often colorfully dyed hair, Ninja can be found on Twitch commenting as he plays Fortnite, sometimes streaming for as many as ten hours a day.

C HAPTER 1

Origins of a Gamer

B efore he became one of the most popular and recognizable gamers in the world, Tyler Blevins was just an ordinary kid who had a typical childhood.

Blevins was born on June 5, 1991, in Lake Villa, Illinois, as Richard Tyler Blevins. He grew up in the village of Grayslake in Lake County, Illinois. His parents, Chuck and Cynthia, had two sons before Tyler, named John and Chris.

While Blevins was growing up, his father was a big fan of video games himself. He often brought many new games home when they were released. Blevins credits his father as the main influence behind his love of video games, which led to his lucrative career at such a young age. When Blevins was younger, his father would often bring home Sega Genesis games for him and his brothers to play. Though all three siblings had early bedtimes, their father would often stay up playing video games after they went to bed sometimes until well past midnight.

In November 2001, Halo: Combat Evolved, a futuristic multiplayer war game, was launched on Microsofts Xbox gaming console. The game was an instant success. Blevins was ten years old at the time, and he often had to watch, frustrated, while his older brothers played Halo without him. They felt he was too young to join in. Once given the chance, he just destroyed us, his brother John admitted in a CNBC.com article by Ali Montag. His brother Chris said, He would stay up past the wee hours and just keep working. I think thats when we were like, Okay, maybe were not going to play with Tyler anymore.

One of the games Blevins played when he was a child was the Xbox exclusive science fiction first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved. He would later go on to play Halo competitively.

In a 2015 interview with YouTube personality Walshy, Blevins recalled playing various video games from his childhood, There was this incredible Jurassic Park game that was for the Sega Genesis that was incredible. It was weird: You could be the raptor or the human It was weird, man. It was the coolest video game ever.

He also fondly remembered playing a Power Rangers video game and said, I basically played every single game you can imagine, like all the time, all day, on the Sega Genesis. Then, moving forward, I believe the first FPS [first-person shooter] I played was, ah, Perfect Dark We didnt own it, though.

Blevins explained to Walshy that his mother did not like violent video games and would monitor all new games that came into the home. As a result, Blevins often went to friends homes to play games he was not allowed to play at home. Despite the restrictions on the games brought into the house, his father continued to purchase all the latest Xbox and PlayStation consoles, and Tyler and his brothers became avid video game players.