Believe it or not, Ninja aka Tyler Blevins the famed Fortniter, earned a one-time paycheck to switch sides, this according to sources over at Reuters. The report states that Ninja was asked by Electronic Arts to help the publisher launch Apex Legends with the game barely unraveled to the public.
Blevins isn't the only famous Twitch streamer Electronic Arts is said to have approached leading up to the product launch. A number of other high-profile streamers are also being credited with Apex Legends break innumerable records out the gate: 50 million players jumping ship in under 30 days.
Like Fornite before it, Apex Legends is free-to-play yet highly dependant on players purchasing cosmetic add-ons once they've become swept up by addictive nature of online play. A promo reel was simulcast across several continental zones on the day of its release.
"We really wanted to create a day where you couldn’t escape ‘Apex’ if you cared about games," said Drew McCoy, the lead producer on the Apex project. "And we wanted it to feel like an event was happening everywhere around the globe on that day."
Bear in mind, not every streamer is made of the same stuff as Ninja. If eSports as a medium is to reach the commercial highs of a banner league like the MLB or NBA, they will need to kickstart a bunny farm replete with Ninja cloning devices, just to break even.