Not only is gaming seemingly getting bigger and bigger each year, the industry’s that have popped up around it — such as streaming — are becoming massive, and may one day eclipse the emergent hobby all together. However, right now, most streamers and video game content creators aren’t making a living. Most aren’t even close to making a living, in fact. However, some are lucky enough to do it as a full-time job, and within this limited pool are a few who are making a fortune off, well, playing video games.
Videos by ComicBook.com
In 2019, the top-ten earning gamers amassed more than 270 million followers across Twitch, Mixer, and YouTube, and earned a massive $121 million last year. That’s a lot of money, and it’s only going to keep stacking up. Not only are streaming platforms getting bigger, but these video game celebrities are getting lucrative sponsorship deals, and are increasingly getting cut fat paychecks to stream and play new games at launch. That all said, here are the top 10 earning video gamers of 2019, courtesy of Forbes.
- Tyler “Ninja” Blevins — Earnings: $17 million
- Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg — Earnings: $15 million
- Preston “Preston” Arsement — Earnings: $14 million
- Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach — Earnings: $14 million
- Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek — Earnings: $12.5 million
- Daniel “DanTDM” Middleton — Earnings: $12 million
- Evan “VanossGaming” Fong — Earnings: $11.5 million
- Sean “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin — Earnings: $11 million
- Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar — Earnings: $8 million
- Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff — Earnings: $6 million
Just like in 2018, Ninja was popping up everywhere. Between his deals with the likes of Red Bull and Walmart, to his massive move from Twitch to Mixer, Ninja proved this past year that he could expand well beyond streaming Fortnite. Heck, he even had a limited-run pair of Adidas shoes. And the crazy part is it doesn’t look he plans on relinquishing the crown anytime soon. After all, just this month he became a literal Fortnite character.
It’s important to remember the figures here are pretax and that fees from agents, managers, and lawyers are not deducted. Further, these are estimates based on TwitchTracker, Captiv8, Pollstar, SocialBlade, and interviews with industry insiders. In other words, it’s hard to say how accurate all the numbers truly are.
Anyway, as always, feel free to leave a comment letting us know what you think. Did you know Ninja, Shroud, and others were making this much money?
