In 2019, 15-year-old student Benjyfishy showed so much talent for the online shooter Fortnite that his mother took him out of school. How is 19-year-old Benjyfishy doing today?
This was the situation in 2019:
- The online world in 2019 was different than today: At the end of 2017, the online shooter Fortnite suddenly appeared and took the world by storm in 2018.
- In 2019, the Fortnite World Championship reached its peak with $30 million in prize money. Each participant who made it to the finals earned $50,000.
- In that situation, a mother decided: It was time for her talented teenager to play Fortnite with online friends in the USA at night rather than attending school in England. This was a worldwide news item in gaming media in May 2019.
Son plays Fortnite at night, is tired in school – So mom takes him out of school
This was the mother’s decision: When her then 15-year-old son won about €11,300 in a Fortnite tournament, the mother decided that her son should no longer attend regular classes, but rather be homeschooled. He would learn the material in three years that he would have needed two years for in school.
The mother’s idea was that her son was involved with many Fortnite players in the USA from England, which is why he played at night and was often tired in school.
Career starts great at 15 – Becomes a hit on Twitch at 16
How did it go for the boy at the beginning? At the start of his e-sports career in 2019, things went really well for the boy. Just the prize money he won was already a multiple of an average annual salary:
- At 15, he earned $392,447 in prize money from Fortnite
- At 16, an additional $147,176 in prize money came in
But by 17, e-sport prize money was thinning out. The e-sport scene for Fortnite dwindled, something like the Fortnite World Championship 2019 never happened again. Covid also struck.
The prize money in Fortnite collapsed in 2019 and it kept getting worse:
But at least the boy could build a relatively large channel on Twitch with his Fortnite skills:
- In 2020, Benjyfishy had an average of 24,000 viewers on Twitch and 18 million viewer hours – that already secures a good income
In 2022, the love for Fortnite faded, and so did the big career
How did it go later? The love for Fortnite disappeared at the latest in 2022 when Benjyfishy announced the end of his Fortnite career and wanted to focus on Riot Games’ shooter Valorant.
But now, 2023 brought a rude awakening: His 4 million followers on Twitch, who subscribed mainly because of Fortnite, hardly want to see him playing Valorant anymore:
- Benjyfishy barely reaches 2,100 viewers today when showing Valorant. That’s only a tenth of the viewer numbers he reached in 2020.
- His average viewership in 2023 has dropped by 53% compared to 2022. Since he is also streaming less, he has lost nearly 70% of his viewer hours.
He still has significantly more success in 2023 when playing Fortnite.
Benjyfishy is now a Valorant pro in Spain
Can he still make a living from gaming? His e-sport career in Valorant is also not going particularly well: Because that is not suitable for solo fighters, Valorant is a team sport. The now 19-year-old Brit has joined “Team Heretics” in Spain.
How much salary the club pays him is not known: The e-sport is going through what is called an “e-sport winter” in 2023, a global decline – millions will not flow in.
Benjyfishy mainly plays second- and third-class tournaments for a few thousand US dollars in prize money – and even that only rarely.
While Benjyfishy with a professional contract and a moderately successful Twitch channel can probably still live from gaming, it cannot be compared to the glorious times as a teenager.
But he seems to have found some happiness in Madrid, as he has extended his stay until 2025 and likely plans to stay in Madrid, even though he flies back to England over the holidays:
Success with Fortnite was great, but apparently not sustainable
What lies behind this: The example of Benjyfishy shows how short-lived the hype in e-sports and gaming can be. While Benjyfishy earned enough prize money in the first years after his mother took him out of school to justify his mother’s decision. The success on Twitch still looked impressive in the first months after he left school.
But now it seems that his career is not exactly sustainable. Especially the decision to switch games is a high risk for an e-sports player and Twitch streamer, which currently doesn’t seem to pay off. However, he probably had to switch, as he simply didn’t want to play Fortnite anymore.
While the now 18-year-old Cody “Clix” Conrad stayed with Fortnite and can hardly walk for money now, it seems to be different for Benjyfishy.
From Fortnite Wonderkid to Number 151 on Valorant Twitch
The problem for e-sports players is also that time is ticking: The career for e-sports players is short. In the long run, it would probably be more important that the Twitch channel picks up again, but it has been steadily declining for several years.
In Valorant, other streamers, like Tarik, are currently popular, and not a former Fortnite wonderkid. Benjyfishy is currently ranked 151 among the largest Valorant channels – even HasanAbi is far from him, and he is primarily a political commentator who has shown only 80 hours of Valorant in 2023.
Other people from the Fortnite era have at least managed to snag a fat YouTube contract when things went south with Fortnite:
