Though Ninja’s viewership continues to decline on Twitch, it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. We’ve talked about him being at home playing Final Fantasy XI in the past. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins had a meteoric rise on Twitch, playing Fortnite to a massive bit of success. He was a pro Halo player who turned to Twitch and Fortnite and pulled millions of fans to his streams. This isn’t to say he’s not successful anymore – he’s still the most followed on the platform with more than 17 million followers). It seems like his day in the sun is ending on Twitch and the decline in viewership doesn’t upset him. Why’s that?

Many people moved to Mixer to try it out – this streamer included. When things ultimately failed, people moved back to Twitch/YouTube. Ninja is one of those who went back to Twitch, but he came back with a much bigger bag of money than the rest of us did. It’s not shameful at all to see that he still pulls in about 11,000 viewers per stream, but it’s nothing compared to what he used to see. He never really recovered his popularity after moving to Mixer. People don’t want to leave their emotes behind, as it turns out.

But why is Ninja perfectly fine with where he is on Twitch? He spoke about it in a recent interview. “No one’s gonna stay on top forever, especially when it comes to live-streaming; there’s always somebody new and hot,” Blevins said. “I have no intention of being that guy anymore. I know I’m not going to pull 100,000 viewers on [Twitch] anymore. I don’t have time to do that. I have a wife; I have a family.”

It’s a sound way to look at it, of course. Nobody is going to stay on top forever, and Ninja seems comfortable enough with that. He’s already made Scrooge McDuckian amounts of money streaming and probably doesn’t need to do it any longer if he wanted. However, he can now play whatever games he wants and still pulls a respectable audience for it. It also feels like Fortnite doesn’t do it anymore on Twitch, but that could always change.

He also talked about stream viewers, but it didn’t sound bitter or upset. “[Fans] are focusing on what they can see in front of them, which is numbers and ‘Ninja isn’t getting 100,000 viewers anymore’, but what they don’t see is everything we created while we were massive and [the] global recognition we have that’s bigger than just streaming on Twitch.”

It’s very much a “What have you done for me lately?” kind of situation, according to Ninja. No matter what you think of his content or opinions, he broke some incredible records and had some major firsts. He was the first content creator to have a Fortnite skin, shattered Twitch records streaming with Drake, and was once the most-subbed-to streamer on Twitch. 

If you look at the numbers, Ninja’s falling off, but he’s already been there, done that. He’s done some incredible things on the platform, and if he wants to hang out and do what he wants on Twitch, who are we to say otherwise? Twitch viewership for Ninja may have dropped off, but he has never seemed happier to create content.