Fortnite, a millionaire profession

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The professionals in this game have made it possible to make a living playing for mass audiences. How much can be earned?

By this time, many already know the case of 'Ninja', the most famous professional video game player of the moment, and perhaps in history. 'Ninja' is a Fortnite player, a video game released just in 2017, and which is already giving hundreds of players the chance to become rich playing in tournaments and showing their skills to large audiences.

Leer en español: Fortnite, una profesión millonaria

According to The Independent, 'Ninja', whose name is Richard Tyler Blevins, earned around $10 million during 2018, derived from his career as a professional Fortnite player and 'streamer'.

With only 27 years, 'Ninja' already has millionaire income, of which around 30% comes from the various sponsorships that he has achieved. Among these, the most notorious has been the one agreed with Red Bull in June of last year, of which details are unknown as the amount that he will receive from the popular Austrian brand.

The other 70% of its income comes from what it receives during its live broadcasts on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube.

A real job

According to The Independent, 'Ninja' spent 4,000 hours of his life at Fortnite during 2018. On average, one person spends 2,038 hours per year at work, which means that 'Ninja' had to spend almost twice as much time on his career as a professional player.

But 'Ninja' is a special case, has become a personality in the world of Fortnite, people tune their 'streams' to watch him play, but also to enjoy what he says and how he behaves.

Other Fortnite professional players depend on other sources of income, as they do not have the same audiences as 'Ninja'. One of these sources of income are the prizes that are given in the Fortnite tournaments, many organized by Epic Games, creators of the game, and many organized independently.

The Fortnite Summer Skirmish, for example, delivers around $8 million dollars in prizes. In comparison, a Cincinnati Masters 1000 tennis tournament delivers around $5 million for the men's category and just $2.5 million for the women's category.

Among the players who make a living on these Fortnite tournaments, the one who has made the most money is Timothy Miller, who plays under the name of 'Bizzle', earning around $322,000 annually only for prizes.

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However, what is coming now, are more and greater prizes for the professionals of the game. Recall that the game has not fulfilled two years of existence in its current form. Even so, Epic Games allocated more than $100 million to reward the game's tournaments during its first year as eSport.

Towards the end of this year, we will see events like the Fortnite World Cup, which will give $100 million dollars in prizes, which shows that, if this last year has been lucrative for professional players, the next one seems to be even more so.

Making a living with Fortnite is possible, but difficult

There are then two ways to make a living with Fortnite:

The first is to emulate 'Ninja', become a personality among the community of Fortnite players, and attract an audience large enough to make your channel attractive to sponsors and advertisers.

The second is to perfect your skills in the game and try your luck in the professional circuit, seeking to access the millions that Epic Games and several other organizers make available to the winners.

Unfortunately, Epic Games has not expanded the infrastructure of Fortnite Professional to Latin America as if it had been done by other eSports such as League of Legends and DOTA. Which means that, for a Latin American person, competing in these events usually involves moving.

LatinAmerican Post | Pedro Bernal

Translated from "Fortnite, una profesión millonaria"