Fortnite’s biggest YouTubers are gaining one million subscribers a month

Just how big is Fortnite: Battle Royale on YouTube? Very. A new report from Let’s Play Index, a site that maintains statistics for different YouTube gaming topics and trends by pulling data from the YouTube API to update statistics and view counts, suggests Fortnite is basically the only game being played on YouTube these days.

Approximately 1,700 Fortnite vides were uploaded to YouTube in the past week, Let’s Play Index reports, amassing roughly 226,376,777 million views in the process. Minecraft, the second most popular game on YouTube, generated 74,398,127 million views from 1,050 videos.

Fortnite’s dominance on platforms like YouTube and Twitch isn’t surprising. The game has infiltrated just about every corner of YouTube, with vloggers and non-gaming creators finding a way to work Fortnite into their videos.

As popular YouTuber Keemstar said on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, “Everyone is playing Fortnite; everyone. All other games are dead.”

Everyone is trying to reap the benefit of Fortnite’s popularity, but there are a couple of notable YouTubers who are at the top of the ladder. Ali-A is a popular YouTuber with close to 12 million subscribers and who’s seen remarkable growth since he started streaming Fortnite. Ali-A used to stream other games, like Call of Duty, but switched over to Fortnite full-time a couple of months ago.

Ali-A’s channel has amassed 180,811,360 million views in the past 30 days, according to SocialBlade, at an average monthly increase of 26 percent. He’s also gained close to one million subscribers in the past 30 days alone. The charts below examine Ali-A’s growth in three distinct areas: total views, average views and monthly views. The biggest growth can be seen in his average and monthly views, which skyrocketed between October 2017 and January 2018 — the same time that Ali-A started streaming more Fortnite.

SocialBlade

Ali-A tweeted on Feb. 1 that January was a record-breaking month for his channel, and specifically called out Fortnite as one of the primary reasons why.

“After 9 years of making videos I never thought these kind of numbers would be possible,” Ali-A said. “My goal now is to just maintain and keep on enjoying making more Fortnite content. THANK YOU everyone!”

By Feb. 8, Ali-A tweeted again to announce that he had gained one million subscribers in just one month — something he’s on track to do again.

“I cannot believe we’ve gained another million in only ONE month, the support is just unreal at the moment,” he said. “I appreciate each and everyone of you spending time out of your day to watch my videos.”

It’s not just Ali-A, though. Ninja, a player already known for being the go-to Fortnite streamer on Twitch, is seeing his own remarkable growth on YouTube. Ninja’s channel has amassed 99,982,500 million views in the past 30 days, according to SocialBlade, representing a monthly growth of 144 percent. Ninja has also gained more than 2.3 million subscribers in the past 30 days, which marks an increase of 116 percent.

The charts below show Ninja’s total, average and monthly view growth.

SocialBlade

Like Ali-A, Ninja’s views jumped when he started to stream more Fortnite. Ninja also credits his success to Fortnite.

“Reflecting at the Starbucks drive through ... seriously incredibly happy for all the streamers and youtubers who have seen massive growth because of Fortnite — a game that truly blessed hundreds of people and changed the lives of millions,” he tweeted on March 7.

Prior to that, Ninja announced that he hit 95,000 subscribers on Twitch (he’s now crossed 100,000) and gained millions of followers on both Twitch and YouTube.

Both Ninja and Ali-A are also seeing financial benefits from their growth. SocialBlade estimates that Ninja is making between nearly $3 thousand and $4.8 million a year from ad revenue, while Ali-A is pulling in somewhere between approximately $542 thousand to $8.7 million a year. That doesn’t include brand sponsorships or tips through Twitch, either.

There’s no doubt that Fortnite is huge, with publications crediting its success on YouTube and Twitch to it how fun it is to watch. It’s the type of colorful, goofy gaming content that appeals to both adult players and kids, and the type of content that YouTube wants to promote.

“All of this means the game is really fun to watch as well as play, making it a huge hit with all the famous video game YouTubers and streamers your kids love, such as Ali-A and DanTDM,” wrote The Guardian. “They’re broadcasting many hours of themselves playing the game to their millions of fans, making Fortnite the most watched game on major streaming service Twitch.”

It’s unclear whether this is just a phase, but for now, YouTubers and Twitch streamers are more than happy to ride that train.