Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins might not be pulling hundreds of thousands on Twitch anymore, but according to Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel, that’s no reason to say he’s “fallen off”. According to the French-Canadian star, Ninja’s doing just fine despite what the stats say.
Numbers-wise, Ninja isn’t the streamer he once was. While he was once averaging over 100,000 viewers a stream playing Fortnite back in 2018 and 2019, Blevins barely manages to rake in 10,000 average viewers.
However, that doesn’t mean he’s “fallen off”, according to xQc.
While the numbers may be lower than they’ve been for years, the circumstances surrounding Ninja’s “failure” post-Mixer are a lot more complex.
“This is why I don’t like when people who are ‘analytics Andy’, when they try to use statistics,” xQc said, rebutting a video on Ninja’s “toxic rise and fall” during an August 17 stream.
Ninja’s “toxic” personality isn’t a reason for his decline, xQc stated.“If they were really to go about the statistics of it, you’d have to make a comparison of the popularity of Fortnite on YouTube and Twitch, popularity of Mixer, and their decline ratios.”
“Now all he does is project his stats and say it’s his failure and his lack of success where there’s a lot of things around it that are super tangible”. The first, according to xQc, are the games that Ninja opts to play now. Instead of playing Fortnite at its peak, he’s now playing League of Legends more on stream.
xQc also doubted that the “toxic Ninja” portrayed by some — from his various Twitch and Mixer stream blowups, to previous controversial comments about women in gaming and streaming — has now caught up to him.
“Imagine gaslighting your audience and everyone else that it’s these small instances and outbursts that make up the entirety of the failure of his entire career,” xQc said.
“Call me out on my downfall. Is it when I roasted a dono or threw a game, or threw a fit on stream yesterday? Which one is it? My hairline?”
Ninja might not be the biggest streamer on Twitch anymore, but his legacy will live on forever — even if he never reaches his old highs.
In xQc’s eyes, calling Ninja a Twitch failure now is “just not it.”