Tyler Blevins, the 28-year-old multimillionaire and a popular face of Fortnite, announced on Thursday that he would be leaving Twitch, a popular streaming platform for gamers, for the Microsoft-owned platform Mixer.
Mr. Blevins, better known to millions of gamers as Ninja, posted a video announcement on Twitter just four days after a 16-year-old won $3 million at the Fortnite World Cup.
“I know this may come as a shock to many of you, but as of today I will be streaming exclusively on Mixer,” Mr. Blevins said in the video. “I feel like this is a really good chance to get back in touch with my roots and really remember why I fell in love with streaming in the first place.”
With more than 14 million followers, Mr. Blevins has the most followers of any Twitch users. The next most-followed gamer has less than half that amount.
“It’s the same me, just a different platform,” Mr. Blevins said.
Mr. Blevins began his professional video game career playing Halo 3 in 2009 and, two years later, started streaming on Twitch. He started streaming Fortnite in 2017. By the end of that year, his follower count had exploded alongside the game’s popularity.
In March 2018, Mr. Blevins sparked controversy when he uttered a racial slur while mouthing along to a Logic song. Months later, he was the subject of further public outcry after stating “I don’t play with female gamers” out of respect for his wife.
Last year, he told The New York Times that he played Fortnite Battle Royale, the popular fight-to-the-death video game, for 10 hours every day, streaming to fans and responding to questions. If he stopped playing for even an hour, he said, he could lose up to 300 followers.
Mr. Blevins said he earned more than $500,000 a month, with Twitch as a primary income source.
In Fortnite Battle Royale, up to 100 players are dropped onto a virtual island. The players fight until only one remains. The game has nearly 250 million registered players, according to its publisher, Epic Games.
On Sunday, the Fortnite World Cup was held at the 23,000-seat Arthur Ashe Stadium, in Queens. The venue was sold out through the weekend for the competition.
“I’m freaking out in the best ways,” Mr. Blevins said in another video posted to Twitter on Thursday. “I love you guys and obviously the streams are just going to be the exact same. So I’m looking forward to seeing you guys on the platform.”