Weird things are happening with Prime subscribers and Fortnite on Twitch. Streamers are noticing anomalies in their communities. The streamer Ninja could be particularly affected. Currently, he is making $250,000 a month just from subscriptions.
Between February 22 and March 3, the well-known Fortnite streamer “Ninja” increased his subscriber count by another 50,000 users. He has now surpassed 100,000 subscribers! The previous 50,000 subscriptions he had were already a record!
This kind of rapid growth for a livestream channel is unprecedented in Twitch history.
With these subscriptions, Ninja earns at least $250,000 a month (probably more), as each subscriber brings in at least $4.99 and the streamer and Twitch share the total. But how much of that money is real?
Many viewers from the Twitch community and some streamers believe that things have not been right on the livestreaming platform lately. Ninja may be a “victim” of Prime bots.
Pro Player Ninja Gets Subscriber Boost
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has been known in the pro player scene for a few years now. In 2017, he reached a large audience as a livestreamer while riding the PUBG hype wave and streaming matches of the battle royale shooter. He has now arrived at Fortnite and has made a name for himself in the community with his high skill.
Ninja is not just another streamer who has chosen Fortnite. We already reported at the end of February about him when he broke a record on Twitch with over 50,000 subscribers. He was on track to earn more than $1 million in a year.
Now he has broken a new record, reaching over 100,000 subscribers on Twitch.TV
In this Twitch clip, you can see the moment when the streamer reaches 100,000 subscribers. Above his webcam, you can see the subscriber counter in blue.
“No channel grows this quickly”
Although Blevins is one of the best players playing one of the hottest games on Twitch, some voices doubt this round success. Can these high subscription numbers really be genuine? The subscriptions appear to be connected to Twitch and Epic’s deal.
Epic and Twitch started a partnership that came into effect on February 28. Players with a Twitch Prime subscription receive an exclusive package of outfits and heroes in Fortnite.
For this reason, many people are likely taking the opportunity to buy Twitch Prime accounts on third-party sites like eBay to grab the popular skins for about $5. The source of these accounts on eBay is questionable, and some fear they could be hacked.
Owners of a Prime account are provided with a Prime subscription each month. Users can gift this to a streamer for free. This could explain the many subscribers of Ninja.
A Twitch Prime account is automatically obtained when one links their Amazon Prime account with Twitch.
Streamers Still Get the Money
Now observers are concerned about the financial side. After all, streamers are paid for the Twitch Prime subscriptions. It is uncertain how Twitch will handle the situation if it turns out that the accounts were hacked.
The unusual accounts have already caught the attention of other streamers and the community. It is noteworthy that accounts subscribe while the livestream channel is offline. Others have not typed a word in chat and still subscribe. Here, streamer Shorty tweets about the problem.
The rude awakening might come in early April. Unlike other subscriptions, Twitch Prime subscriptions do not renew automatically. They must be manually renewed by the user. If they were made by bots, there should be significantly fewer subs for Ninja next month.
In its rules, Twitch.TV clearly states against the unauthorized selling of accounts. So far, there has been no evidence that compromised Twitch Prime accounts have been sold and used for these purposes.
It could also all be legal. Fortnite is currently THE game on Twitch. The skin package for Fortnite has increased interest in Twitch Prime accounts. It is quite possible that Ninja is simply the “lucky streamer of the month” who is receiving all the subscriptions arising from the Fortnite-Twitch-Prime deal.
