Ninja

Ninja is gaming and Youtube royalty in our opinion. Arguably he:

Placed Fortnite on the map which gave rise to many more Massive Multiplayer games (even though they may not have been the first)
Showed many people you can make a living from gaming
Showed, that when managed, you can become a brand
You can go from niche to mainstream media

There might be much more but those, in our opinion, have been the most noticeable. Then we have the list of Youtube stats and accomplishments:

23.8million subscribers at the time of writing
2k+ videos
tons of charity work
a whole range of merch and social media profiles
TV appearances/ Masterclasses/ Podcast
Gaming awards
first Twitch streamer to get 3 million followers (in 2018)
Earned over $500k/month through Youtube from 2021, roughly $25 million/ year with other stuff thrown in
As of 2024 Ninja is the most followed twitch streamer (19 millions subs)
19th most subscribed Youtube gaming channel (Socialblade 2024 stats)

Clearly Ninja is doing well...but is he?

Is Ninja doing enough? 3 questions that we want to find out

Now this depends what you mean by enough right? $25 million/ year seems like he is doing pretty much enough :) However We just wanted to figure out something, or a few questions:

is gaming enough for the time and effort deployed?
why is Ninja "only" at 25 million subs?
can Ninja go into anything else?

So lets take another example in a different field, MrBeast.

Now we have to do some assuming, and this might not be fair to Ninja but it is a thought if you want to go down a certain route.

MrBeast has similar energy and offers videos on Youtube. MrBeast is also a celebrity and has done many things off Youtube. BUT. Has:

268 million subs as of 2024
798 videos as of the same time
over 100 million views per video

Ok, too mean?

How about Markiplier. A Youtuber known for indi horror games?

Stats as of 2024?

5k videos
36 million subs
ton of social channels

So, is there some sort of common element within these 2 rather than Ninja?

Well, to answer our first question: is gaming enough for the time deployed? No it is not. Regardless of direct Twitch or watching someone play on Youtube, just gaming is not worth the effort.

What is worth the effort is to try and spin that gaming audience into other areas. Ultimately it is one big funnel. MrBeast did (does?) have a gaming channel which the other channels funneled into and vice versa. So he picked up gaming subscribers. However those subscribers were highly likely the same type of audience that would like his other channels. Choose the right game (Minecraft- one of the largest), choose some people to help you (some Minecraft celebrities who incidentally have large amount of subscribers) and each channel feeds itself.

Mark? Does something similar. Creates movies, creates animations that can be game related. This then brings in alternative audiences. So Bobs Revenge- animation short: 1.4 million views. 5 minutes movie Heist With Markiplier- 42 million views.

Compared to Ninja? Ninja is mainly focusing on gaming and specific gaming at that. Which is working for Ninja but the same audience is moving from one platform to another platform. Unless there are new subscribers to the games there are few new subscribers. This also has the bad benefit of if Fortnite loses players then this affects the Ninja videos.

The Podcast is a step in the right direction but again, it is directed mainly to Fortnite. TV appearances are cool but the audience might not be the ones that you require. They might not increase your Fortnite viewers- especially if it is the masked singer.

What was the point? Did it improve viewership, did it launch anything else? This is from Entertainment Weekly:

"...the Ice Cream pulled off his delicious mask and was immediately recognized (by his millions of YouTube fans) as Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the professional gamer and streamer."
"I think that they have never had someone like me on the show so they needed to make the clues more obvious. That’s what I think. I knew the kids would figure it out."

So there might be a diversification issue for Ninja?

Maybe. But we think there are more issues than just diversification. TV, Podcast Online...how diverse can you get. But what they all have in common is a little varied away from the goal of...

...

That is what the issue might be. So you have Youtubers going on TV or doing interviews, but those same Youtubers are trying to do something with that blast of publicity. MrBeast and Mark Rober launched tree planting and water cleaning initiatives which drove a specific audience.

They also collaborated a lot with other Youtubers and celebs (which Ninja has done in the past especially with Drake) to drive to a certain goal.

For us, we can't seem to work out the goal. Is it just gaming content of the same game? What would be other areas to direct to? Below are some ideas which, on reading a few times are kinda cool (if we do have to say ourselves :))

Is there a Ninja multimedia company?
Gaming company?
Training school/ mentorship
Gaming peripherals
Gaming room builders
Ninja reacts to other gamers
Gaming awards and conferences
Ninja interviews

There is one factor that gets overlooked

The one thing that we have noticed over the multiple years we have watched Ninja. It is something that is starting to creep into Ninjas content creation toolbox- the Podcast.

However, what most of the other Youtubers have done is interact with their subscribers.

This has been one of the failings of Ninja. The videos used to be cool- with Ninja reactions, then they started to fade away and sometimes you would get only a few sentences within the video. They became boring.

Sure he is focused, but this is the most noticeable issue. You can have a load of social elements associated with the brand but they seem to be on amplify rather than listen. Subscriber interaction seems like one of the main ingredients for online success- especially continued engagement.

So with Ninja growth you don't (or not well mentioned):

subscriber awards or giveaways
discussion with subscribers
gaming analysis videos- why did Ninja do this rather than that. Why did he choose this than that. He got killed, why?
10 random subscribers have a day of training with Ninja
100 subscribers get Ninjas book (which was a nice insight btw) or a periphery

I don't think this is bribery as such but it is what a shop would do. When you are online you are your brand and brands have to keep people coming back/ keeping people interested in them. Heck, Amazon even has Prime Day. Amazon, a powerhouse online has to advertise and discount to their loyal customers/ subscribers.

Brand loyalty comes 2 ways- brands keep their brand as customers want it and those customers are loyal to the brand. Brands then have special discounts, days, bonuses, interaction etc. Just because you are a person brand, or an online storefront doesn't neglect the fact that you are still a brand with brand rules that people subconsciously follow.

As always we wish Ninja all the best

If you want to check out more small business moniterization strategies, check out our blog here.