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addytheheartbreaker · 5 years

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"Meet Carmelo the Ice Cream"

Name: Carmelo Jerato

Age: 22

Height: 6'1 ft

Weight: 59 kg

Mask singer belong to: Tyler "Ninja" Blevins

Friends with: Doll, Dog, Rabbit, Egg, Monster, Penguin, Hippo, Skeleton, Ladybug, Rottweiler and Unicorn.

Appearance: Ice cream person, blue mint ice cream hair with chocolate sauce and sprinkles with a single strawberry ice cream top fisish with a cherry on top (if he could turned into a human, his hair would be obviously light blue). Light skin, kitsune no me (also known as "Fox eyes" or "Shifty eyes" in English or people who always closed his/her eyes), sky blue eyes (made out of ice cream, if human his eyes are sky blue eyes), the OwO smile (because he is adorable), blushes and slender and tall body type.

Clothing style: Ice cream theme with ice cream related decorations and accessories (flavor color and various of toppings), jacket or hoodies, sweater or printed shirts, his bandana and formal suits (main clothing). Casual clothes, ninja uniform (only for battle competitions or in gaming dimension).

Fun facts about Carmelo:

•Carmelo is a Americans-Japanese boy living in America his whole life.

•he can speak and understand English and Japanese, his mother taught him japanese which he learned very quickly in young age.

•he has a collection of anime (old times and modern times), he can also watch anime on his spare time.

•Ice Cream can let Egg borrowed his anime since the two loves watching anime. There are times when they watch anime together at the Masked Singer 2 mansion.

•Carmelo is a huge sweet tooth, he often must eat sweets after meals or when he is still live on twitch gaming.

•A successful professional gamer/streamer, has claimed many titles like Ninja, a billionaire and a well known generous philanthropist.

•as a famous streamer star and a philanthropist, he is generous to do a charity for mental health issues support, suicidal prevention, cancer prevention and child depression treatment support.

•Carmelo is a very friendly, energetic, enthusiastic, cheerfula fun, child like, and wonderful guy to meet with.

•he is friendly to children and has time to hang out at the child depression treatment support center to cheer and play with depressed children.

•He is an associated of the group called the "Night Streamers Joy".

•Ice Cream has been controlled and trolled by his boss who challenging each other while doing charity.

•Ice Cream can go through different dimensions. His main dimension where his group are in is the "Gaming dimension", a huge unknown island like battle field for him and the group with many people to play. (Fortnite reference).

•The only way he can go to that dimension is actually out of the body experience like. His real body still stays while controlling and expressing emotions while playing as his mind and soul entered the visual dimension as a player. (Inspired by the movie Sucker Punch, loved that movie its awesome)

•Carmelo secretly owns many weapons that looks like the game or fortnite weapons that came to real life. He knows how to use it and it is highly unknown how he managed to use it but some believed that he had been practicing on playing games his whole life.

•His family, a mother and father, an older brother and younger sister, he is a middle brother but treated like a child to him.

•owns so MANY games at his bedroom and gaming room. He remembers what the games instructions and stories about and he basically remembered every game titles.

•Ice Cream couldn't go outside without drinking nitrogen liquid.

•Nitrogen liquid is a family traditional everyday medicine because his family are all ice cream or frozen dessert people. He needed to drink nitrogen before going outside is because of the sun heat exposing if he stays outside for too long.

•the only part that would melt first is his eyes and hair. The eyes melts faster then his hair and it gave him a terrifying melting eye look that scares everyone.

•but that's alright, he can refilled his eyes by going to the "Comfort room" (aka the Freeze room), stay there for 10 minutes before putting 2 scoops of ice cream to his eyes.

•if he had a human form, Carmelo has asthma from overheat and couldn't stand heat very seriously.

•He plays video games and do streaming and live charity 24/7. He is also takes breaks but didn't take vacations because of his melting pressure.

•his hobbies are playing soccer, playing more video games (on or off streaming), hanging with friends or the children, going to the mall to play arcade games then get a lot of prizes and going through cafes, candy and bakery stores to eat sweets.

•he doesn't have any stomach problems or any illness after eating a huge amount of sweets. Its because as an ice cream man who is born with a family of frozen desserts, sweets is a resource power and energy.

•his hair, hair accessories?, eyes and outfit changes flavor and toppings according to his mood and emotions. However, the black licorice/charcoal black ice cream flavor is the most expensive looking ice cream you ever seen.

•the black ice cream is not shown on public. There are rumors on public that causes everyone on craving to wanting to tastes it but couldn't reach and trigger his black ice cream. It remains mysterious to unlock that flavor.

•the only person who Carmelo already showed and letting them taste the black ice cream is his closest friends who are willing to keep a secret, Bezai (Egg), TJ (Monster) and his family.

•Egg and Monster knew the taste of the expensive looking black flavor, if asked they both wouldn't revealed it.

•the only way to trigger the Black Licorice/Charcoal Black Ice Cream are two things; someone with a very HUGE amount of money donating on his lives streams or someone who is a billionaire and in ready battle or in fighting mode.

•the Black Ice Cream is called "Killer Ice Cream" or "Dark Time Ninja flavor". Because people are Dying to get that type of flavor and this killer ice cream is only active when he faces a fighting challenged or wanting to murder someone (but too soft to commit such crime). It only showed at the Gaming dimension only.

•He is friends with Marshmello. Ninja introducing to him and he has been on his concert for fun.

•He has his bandana, Ninja made it for him so they could match together. He only wear his bandana when he feels like fighting, when he feels serious on playing fair and on Killer Ice Cream mode.

•A huge fan of Naruto, him and his group did the running ninja which he had a lots of views of the random video on youtube.

•his powers is nitrogen fog or frost powers (it is different to Ice power to Frost powers).

•his fighting style is karate, taekwondo and military skills. He professional learned taekwondo daily at high school when he was just a teen, he won 3 gold medals and 5 silver medals from first to the end of high school years.

•as for his military skills, he got it from the game and learned all further constructions which is explained on why he knew how to use a gun and other weapons he possessed.

•Carmelo suffers on depression. In addition onto how he got depression is when he was just a teen where he first got his own twitch.

•age 17-18, he is a victim of toxic fans and was a victim of a certain person on twitch who ruined him into giving his fans a negativity on live streams. Ninja notices the changes and decided to stop the manipulator by exposing him with a help with his friends. Carmelo is grateful that his mentor/friend helped him for everything, but he still suffers to depression still.

•he took medication and support on his long break from twitch before he had finally continue to play.

•his has the same views and followers as Ninja's. Ice Cream is still in the same number of views today.

•He left twitch after Ninja decided to leave twitch. Which means he had left his group, the reason behind it is not just about Ninja. Carmelo: the real reason I left is because its time for me to moved on to the next level and get out from my comfort zone. It was fun after everything I've been through and I had a lots of good memories and bad memories here on twitch. I'll leave the guys who are now my former group to keep it up.

•he can draw anime and cartoon, he only draw it on spare time.

•his room at the Masked singer 2 mansion. His room is literally the freezer room obviously located at the kitchen, the room walls are all covered with crystal ices but in light blue, it was dark but his room are filled with neon lights, his complete desktop, a bathtub filled with ices, his bed, a mountain of ice cream containers and several frozen desserts and a room with his clothes there (Bezai: It bothers me that you put your clothes at this freezer room as your room Carmelo. Carmelo: why bother? I'm an ice cream man, I need to be at least chill to cool myself enough.) (see what I did there 😉 )

•He always played loud music every weekends because he wanted to practice dancing. The song choice are Marshmello's songs, electric soundtracks, 8-bit songs, and Japanese songs (mostly vocaloid).

•Ice Cream once played Family feud because he is a fan of that show since teenage years. Him and his group played together then won the money.

•his partner Bezai, Carmelo always been beside him and always go with him around for no reason. Because they are partners together, Ice cream and Egg are food related which is why he always have to follow him.

•he is Addy's playmate when he is out streaming. When he isn't playing on his desktop, they go play on the couch play video games on TV, PC and go to the mall to play arcade games to get prices.

•Ice Crean respectedly and acted politely to woman and young ladies. Since he knew about Ninja banned to play with a female player, he followed his advice onto not playing with a female player but he would act courteous when out of streaming or gaming.

•He met Egg when he went to have an interview together before the Masked Singer season 2.

•He can't say any swear words since he never swear in his life. He did hear people swearing but for him, he remains clean to his mouth especially in front of children.

•since his eyes remain close all the time and everyday, he has a emoji that looks exactly his look. His emojis are actually OwO but closing eyes: —w— , ^w^, UwU, ~w~, >w<, XwX, =w=

#the masked singer human au #the masked singer #masked singer #carmelo jerato the ice cream #carmelo jerato

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its10054 · 2 years

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Poki jideon

JiDion | Wikitubia | Fandom.

Ninja and Pokimane’s drama explained amid Jidion’s Twitch ban.

BOUNCY BASKETBALL - Play Bouncy Basketball on Poki.

Pokimane Reacts to Jidion's DISGUSTING Comment About her... - YouTube.

Summit1g Reacts: Streamer Jidion BANNED for Hate Raid on... - YouTube.

Twitch Streamer Permanently Banned For Pokimane Hate Raid.

Pokimane - Wikipedia.

Pokimane's LEAKED Nudes (@PokimaneNude) / Twitter.

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Pokimane discusses her sexuality with fans on Twitch - WIN.

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Pokimane / Pokimanelol / Imane Anys / OfflineTV | Page 67.

Ninja's team threatens to sue Pokimane for defamation - Inven.

Pokimane and JiDion end online beef, eat burgers... - POPTOPIC.

JiDion | Wikitubia | Fandom.

Jan 17, 2022 · Jidon "Jidion" Adams encouraged his chat to flock to Pokimane's Twitch stream, saying "everybody say L + Ratio" in her chat. After realising she was the victim of a hate raid, Pokimane noted that.

Ninja and Pokimane’s drama explained amid Jidion’s Twitch ban.

Twitch upgraded JiDion’s 14-day ban to a permanent one after he orchestrated a “hate raid” on Pokimane’s stream, but he claims their decision was influenced by external pressure.

BOUNCY BASKETBALL - Play Bouncy Basketball on Poki.

Jul 25, 2020 · He expressed interest in collaborating with Jideon after his initial ban, was surprised that Jideon received a two week ban for his first offense, and didn’t think that the entire situation was a big deal. Yet, he still admitted that he broke TOS and shouldn’t have done what he did. Jan 18, 2022 · Aaron Alford. Jan 17, 2022. URL. On Monday, Pokimane published a DM from Jessica Blevins, wife of Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, in which Blevins threatened legal action against Poki for calling out Ninja over his support of Jidion, claiming that Poki's quoting a clip in which Ninja said he reached out to a Twitch rep was defamation.

Pokimane Reacts to Jidion's DISGUSTING Comment About her... - YouTube.

Summit1g Reacts: Streamer Jidion BANNED for Hate Raid on... - YouTube.

Poki Gideon is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with Poki Gideon and others you may know. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected.

Twitch Streamer Permanently Banned For Pokimane Hate Raid.

Pokimane - Wikipedia.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works. Nov 11, 2021 · The YouTuber, who was in disbelief, informed his fans about the arrest. The cop is then heard explaining to him why he was arrested for arson. The cop says, “in some states, you can also commit.

Pokimane's LEAKED Nudes (@PokimaneNude) / Twitter.

Press J to jump to the feed. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Jan 17, 2022 · Popular streamer Pokimane has accused Ninja of aiding fellow content creator JiDion in receiving a lighter punishment after being banned for harassment. In a Dec. 13 stream, Pokimane ended her. Support Poki( consider liking and subscribing, if you enjoyed! ^_^.

FREE GAMES FOR KIDS ONLINE - Play Now at Kids.P!.

Pokimane is one of the most popular streamers in the world. It's no surprise that people wonder about her private life. - September 13, 2021 - WIN.

Pokimane discusses her sexuality with fans on Twitch - WIN.

Use left/right arrows to navigate the slideshow or swipe left/right if using a mobile device.

Overlay Golf App Clash.

Pokimane / Pokimanelol / Imane Anys / OfflineTV | Page 67.

Feb 03, 2022 · Feb 3, 2022. URL. Source: JiDion. Streamers Pokimane and JiDion, who have recently been at odds with each other, appear to have mended fences, with a new AMA posted to JiDion's channel, showing a picture of the two eating chicken sandwiches together with the caption "Ask me and Poki questions." Based on a cursory examination of the image, it.

Ninja's team threatens to sue Pokimane for defamation - Inven.

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Pokimane and JiDion end online beef, eat burgers... - POPTOPIC.

Jan 19, 2022 · JiDion, Twitter / Pokemane, YouTube / Ninja, Twitch. Three Twitch streamers are feuding after Pokemane said she was "harrassed" by JiDion's fans. JiDion apologized and denied accusations of misogyny, saying he was unfairly banned by Twitch. Ninja, the platform's most-followed gamer, also weighed in. Over 3 million people read Morning Brew; you. Jul 25, 2020 · Pokimane has summarized her perspective on her drama with Jideon, Ninja, and Jessica Blevens (Ninja’s wife/manager) in a Tweet w/ three attachments- three pics of her summarizing the events in Notes & one pic of the comments she received on Instagram. Here is a link to the original Tweet.

Other content:

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Arm Neon Poky Linux Gnueabi

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abcnewspr · 2 years

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HIGHLIGHTS FOR ABC NEWS’ ‘GMA3: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW,’ APRIL 18-22

The following report highlights the programming of ABC’s “GMA3: What You Need to Know” during the week of April 18-22. “GMA3: What You Need to Know” is a one-hour program co-anchored by Amy Robach, T.J. Holmes with Dr. Jennifer Ashton as chief medical correspondent. The news program airs weekdays at 1:00 p.m. EDT| 12:00 p.m. CDT on ABC, and 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. EDT on ABC News Live.

Highlights of the week include the following:

Monday, April 18— United States Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh; Money Monday with Forbes Advisor CPA and tax analyst Kemberley Washington; authors and couple DJ Envy and Gia Casey (“Real Life, Real Love”); actress Auli’i Cravalho (“Crush”)

Tuesday, April 19 — Veteran, former White House chef and author Andre Rush (“Call Me Chef, Dammit!”)

Wednesday, April 20 — Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mayor Cavalier Johnson; YouTuber and gamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins; Deals and Steals with ABC e-commerce editor Tory Johnson

Thursday, April 21 — Representative Joe Neguse (D-CO); Institute for Women’s Policy Research President and CEO C. Nicole Mason; Consumer Report nutritionist Amy Keating; spoken word artist and author Brandon Leake (“Unraveling”)

Friday, April 22 — Faith Friday with author Jennie Allen (“Find Your People”)

ABC Media Relations

Elizabeth Hecht

[email protected]

Denise Horn

[email protected]

-- ABC --

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orbemnews · 4 years

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What Does a Gamer Look Like? Video games entered mainstream culture decades ago, but these days, gamers are more like celebrities, with millions of fans online. That means, among other things, that the days of gamers wearing jorts and oversize T-shirts are long past. Esports athletes and streamers alike now dress with urban panache mixed with opulent sensibilities. The result is a mix of luxury brand worship, Korean streetwear, video game fantasy and Japanese “kawaii” culture. Major brands have taken notice. Tyler Blevins, the mega-popular video game streamer known as Ninja, signed a deal with Adidas and released a limited edition run of “night joggers,” which sold out almost immediately. Gucci partnered with the London esports team Fnatic on a $1,600 dive watch. Louis Vuitton teamed up with League of Legends, the most popular esport in the world, for a limited run of capsules and shirts. And the designer Jeff Staple, often credited with kick-starting the collectible sneaker revolution, worked with the Overwatch League on a line of jerseys. “I feel that while streetwear was rising, gaming culture was also rising,” Mr. Staple said. “In 2018, when Overwatch League first reached out, that’s when the paths started to cross.” Gaming accessories too are style. Players can be seen wearing large headphones with keyboards sticking out of their backpacks. HyperX creates a popular line of gaming headsets. Its ambassadors include the singer Post Malone, JuJu Smith-Schuster of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Daigo Umehara, the Street Fighter champ. For their fans, players display a wide array of styles, from a team-branded hoodie to a camo jacket to Pokémon cosplay. We spoke to three players about how they think about their appearance: an influencer, a pro gamer and an amateur gamer. Imane Anys The 24-year-old Twitch streamer known as Pokimane has more than 7 million followers on the platform. Her style mixes comfort, cute spectacle and streetwear. I see many streamers and esports athletes dying their hair in nonnatural colors. Why? Whether it’s your hair or accessories, it really becomes part of your branding and, in essence, iconic to who you are. So for example Ninja: It’s the blue hair. For me, it’s become kind of curly wavy brown hair and wearing a headset, almost all the time. In regard to accessories, what do you like to wear while you stream? It’s more about what kind of accessories you don’t want to wear. For example, I found that I don’t usually wear earrings or bracelets much because earrings really get in the way of your headset and it can kind of hurt. And bracelets get in the way of your armrest on your gaming chair. Streetwear is especially popular in gaming and esports circles. Why? It’s still something that you feel comfortable in. You can dress it sort of up or sort of down. That aspect of comfort is really important when you’re sitting down for six plus hours on your PC chair. What streetwear brands are you wearing right now? I love Prix. I’ve always really enjoyed some nice athleisure — if you would consider an Adidas or Nike a kind of streetwear. And one of my all-time favorite stores is called Maniere De Voir. Is there pressure for women who stream to want to look cute, and does that come at odds with comfort? I think because no brands are specifically targeting that — clothing that’s comfortable to sit in or walk around in — athleisure seems to be what everybody defaults to because there isn’t another option. Adidas, Nike and especially Lululemon. With Twitch having a largely male audience, is there more demand to wear sexier outfits? Does that clash with your more modest look and how do you navigate that? I think there’s a desire for both, to be honest. There are people that will ask you to wear more revealing clothing, but then if you decide to, there are people that will comment rude things. I found that it’s best to just do what you want and what makes you comfortable. How has the pandemic affected your style? Initially, quarantine didn’t impact my style too much since I’ve always worked from home. However, I’ve recently started reaching for the pieces I’d usually save for special outings, and wearing them at home just to spice things up and put them to use until it’s safe to go out again. Thomas Paparatto Known as ZooMaa, he is a professional Call of Duty League player for the New York Subliners, part of the Andbox esports organization, which houses a clothing design arm. Earlier this month, he announced that he would be stepping back from competition due to ongoing wrist pain, though he will continue to stream. What are you wearing here? I wore a part of my collection, which is the hoodie, and I just put on a pair of jeans and some white shoes to go with it. I’m a very simple guy when it comes to clothes. What was your goal with this collection? I just wanted something that looks good that anybody can wear out in the open, no matter what the age is. I wanted something that people can wear to school that doesn’t scream “gamer.” What do you mean by “scream ‘gamer’”? Like a team name maybe. Or like a bunch of sponsored jerseys, stuff like that. I wanted something more, like everyday wear that people can wear to work or wear to school or wear around the office. Is there anything wrong with clothing that screams “gamer”? Absolutely not. It’s just, for me, not everybody knows much about gaming, so I just think having something that’s more versatile that anybody can wear would be really cool. But obviously I’m a gamer, so having a little bit of gaming twist to it. What things are integrated into clothing for gaming purposes? Hand warmers are a big thing. So having a nice hoodie pocket or having nice pockets like that can keep your hands warm in between matches. And why are hand warmers important? The venues are always really cold. So having hand warmers on deck, just holding between matches keeps your hands nice and warm and loose. You have a custom PlayStation 4 controller made by Scuf Gaming. Explain the importance of having a custom controller. It’s a comfort thing. They do little things that help your game. They give you a really good grip on controllers. The smart triggers and smart bumpers, which I think is like the most important thing. They’re just more responsive than a regular controller. You grew up in Cranford, N.J., and now you represent the New York Subliners. How important is your image? It’s pretty important to me. I always want to rep the team that I play for just because I’m proud of it. Have you changed your look in the pandemic? Not really, just like to change styles depending on what’s hot and what season it is. Nathan Truong The 20-year-old gamer and upcoming Twitch streamer out of San Jose, Calif., goes by Nate. Explain your get-up with the camo jacket. I decided to pick up that jacket simply because it’s something a little bit different but not too flashy. I tend to not wear a ton of print varieties of colors, but I think camouflage is something that’s not really worn too much anymore. And what are these necklaces? One, a skull, and the other one is a pendant of a lion. They add a little bit of flair to whatever you’re wearing and it does add a sense of personality to your outfit. I think one of them in specific looks like an esports team logo, Houston Outlaws. And then the rest of your ensemble? So starting with the shoes, I’m wearing the Adidas Yeezy Boost Pirate Black. I think they stand out. Fairly simple because they’re all black, as well as the Levi’s 501 original fit men’s jeans. You’re wearing HyperX headphones, and HyperX has landed endorsement deals with major athletes and gamers. Is that why you chose them? I think HyperX makes a lot of audio devices with better quality and a little bit more comfort as well as with just a cleaner look. What about the keyboard you’re using? The keyboard is a Ducky One 2 Mini. It is a 60 percent keyboard, meaning that it’s traditionally smaller than most keyboards also comes with less keys, so the arrow keys are actually also the I, J, K and L keys. I hopped on this hype train where the player Tfue had been using this keyboard. I thought it was really cool. As you build up your presence, you gain more clout. And with clout comes a greater adherence to your personal image and brand. How does fashion play into all of that? With clout, you have more people looking at you, you have more people idolizing you. If you don’t have a sense of fashion, then you could be seen as almost like a nerd. But in a way, it changes how people look at you, it makes them think whether you’re cool or not. How has your style changed during lockdown? Since quarantine, I have been going for a much more comfortable look yet with a skater aesthetic. I think the best thing about dressing this way is that it doesn’t have to be super expensive. Finding clothes, with most places being closed and mainly being inside most of the time, there’s lots of time to shop online. Source link Orbem News #Gamer

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bi-lethh · 4 years

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i call myself a gamer but any mention of fortnite: battle royale or tyler “ninja” blevins gives me hives

#shitpost.em #i mean only real gamers play fortnite

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davidklaukedtjnz · 5 years

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Blog 14: Writer’s Choice 4 - ESports Debate

For my fourth and final writer’s choice blog, I have decided to give my two cents on the ESports debate, which is not only a hot topic of discussion in New Zealand, but the world. This question genuinely interests me because I myself played my fair share of video games as a kid. As my parents know, I was a big fan of the Call of Duty games, and played them religiously throughout childhood, and not to toot my own horn, but I was pretty damn good. Specifically, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops 1 & 2 were my games. I digress. Even despite this I’m going to go ahead and say I don’t think they’re a sport and I’ll give my reasoning why later in this blog.

I can understand both sides to this argument and see both sides. On the side that I’ll call “pro-sport,” it’s undeniable how huge video games have become in today’s society, particularly competitive video games. They’re also a huge market and often draw just as many viewers as most sporting events. They also argue that ESports is largely a mental test rather than a physical test. (So by that logic does that make checkers a sport? Does that make blackjack a sport? Where is the line drawn that distinguishes a game and a sport? Is there even a line anymore?) When we were lectured at Sport New Zealand, our speaker said that the anti-sport people are probably going to be on the wrong side of history, specifically saying that “the market is the market.” I understand and agree with what he’s saying. I think ESports will soon be widely accepted as a sport, even though I think many people will never accept them as sport.

On the other hand, “anti-sport” arguers claim that there’s no innate ability to ESports, which I personally think is true. I think that if most people dedicate the time and energy into being good at video games or a particular video game, they can be, but most people, no matter how hard they try, simply are not capable of being an NBA athlete for example. I mean I’m sure a pro gamer would disagree with that, but I probably wouldn’t be persuaded by their arguments, which I believe is probably true for most people.

Essentially, I think this argument is centralized on how you define sport. If you define sport as simply, “a marketable, competition based activity,” then yes I think ESports qualify. However, I simply don’t think video games and athletics are one in the same. I think ESports are a hugely popular and profitable industry, and should be treated as such, but I don’t think they should be considered as much of a sport as basketball, football, soccer, etc.

I’ll end by asking a question... Tyler “Ninja” Blevins is one of the greatest video game players in the world and is probably the best Fortnite player. LeBron James is the GOAT and the best basketball player to ever step on the hardwood (sorry Mike but its true). Sure they’re both monumentally popular around the world and make insane amounts of money, but does that mean Ninja is a world class athlete like LeBron? Is Ninja one of the biggest sports stars in the world? Is his sporting achievement comparable to LeBron’s?

#notasport

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x-enter · 5 years

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The life and rise of Tim Sweeney, the billionaire CEO and founder of the company behind 'Fortnite,' Epic Games

Tim Sweeney is the CEO and founder of Epic Games, the company that brought the world "Fortnite."

Despite having a net worth of $7 billion, Sweeney enjoys the simpler things in life like Diet Coke and fried chicken from Bojangles'.

Read on to learn about the life and rise of Sweeney as he changes the way the world thinks about video games.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tim Sweeney may seem like your average guy. He likes hiking, tinkering with technology, the occasional Diet Coke, and fried chicken from Bojangles'.

However, he is anything but average. Sweeney is the CEO of Epic Games, the company behind "Fortnite" — the popular battle-royale-style video game that raked in over $2.5 billion in 2018. Epic Games also brought games like "Gears of War" into the mainstream.

Sweeney has a net worth of $7 billion, millions of which he has donated to forest conservation efforts.

When it comes to tech execs, Sweeney is one who remains rather low-key. He's single, unmarried, and doesn't have any kids. And he's never been enticed by the flashy trappings of Silicon Valley: Epic Games is based out of Cary, North Carolina, just down the road from Raleigh.

Sweeney's first-ever job is still his current job, though the responsibilities have changed since founding Epic Games in 1991. Overall, Sweeney describes his life as "simple." If he means a simple life that has also radically changed the way millions of people play video games online, then, sure — a simple life indeed.

Here's everything you need to know about Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games.

SEE ALSO: The first video games and software programs famous tech CEOs made when they were young

DON'T MISS: These 7 tech CEOs and executives lost millions, along with the companies they helped build

Tim Sweeney, 48, was born in 1970 and raised in Potomac, Maryland, with two older brothers. His father was a cartographer for the US government and his mother took care of Sweeney and his brothers.

Source: Wall Street Journal

When Sweeney was a preteen, he visited his eldest brother in San Diego, California, at a startup he was working at, which had an IBM computer. His brother taught him how to program on it, and Sweeney spent the rest of the rather impressionable trip "just programming the computer, figuring things out."

Sources: Gamasutra, Kotaku

After turning 11, Sweeney spent hours on the Apple II Plus computer his brother gave him and used it to program video games. Sweeney told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he spent more time "programming than I think I was sleeping or in school or doing any other one thing in the world."

Sources: CNBC, The Wall Street Journal

Sweeney would play Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros." when he was a child as a way to "discover what games were doing and how they were doing it," according to an interview with video game website Kotaku in 2011. Aside from gaming, the inquisitive future CEO would also take apart lawnmowers, radios, and TVs to see how each gear functioned. He was also a big fan of arcades.

Source: Kotaku

Sweeney attended the University of Maryland as a mechanical-engineering major. During his second year of college, he decided to go all-in with gaming by creating his first full-fledged video game, "ZZT." He also founded his company, Potomac Computer Systems, which would later become Epic Games, to develop the "ZZT."

Source: Gamasutra, CNBC

Despite being a gifted young coder, Sweeney didn't initially know how to program graphics, like "actual characters and objects," into ZZT. Instead, he used symbols and smiley faces that would attack monsters and "run through levels." The hardware also functioned as an editor, so users could create their own games with it. He released the game in 1991.

Source: Engadget

Sweeney dropped out of University of Maryland just one credit shy of graduating and moved back in with his parents in Potomac when he was 20. He used the $4,000 in his savings and began working on what would later become Epic Games in his parents' garage. For quite some time, customers who were interested in buying a copy of "ZZT" sent checks to Sweeney's parents' house, and waited for a disk copy of the game to come in the mail.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, CNBC

Sweeney sold "several thousand" copies of "ZZT" while living with his parents. He rebranded his company as Epic Games, a name Sweeney said was "kind of a scam to make it look like we were a big company." With new orders coming in daily, Sweeney was able to move out of his parents' house in 1999 and quit his side-gig, mowing lawns.

Source: Gamasutra

Sweeney then moved Epic Games to Cary, North Carolina, where it still remains. At the start, Sweeney's primary role was still programming, until the release of "Unreal," the company's inaugural first-person shooter video game.

Source: CNBC

"Unreal," which was released in 1998, was a PC-based game that allowed users the ability to play together on separate computers. The 3D graphics technology behind the game was called the Unreal Engine "that has evolved to become the ubiquitous bedrock upon which Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and even iPhone and iPad blockbusters are built," according to Kotaku.

Sources: Business Insider, Kotaku

In 2006, Epic's "Gears of War" was released. It was built upon the Unreal Engine for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. The New York Times described the game as "a more deliberate, thoughtful sort of shooter [with] plenty of action and gore." The publication also called "Gears of War" one of the "best looking" games.

Sources: CNBC, The New York Times, The New York Times

By the release and subsequent success of "Gears of War," Sweeney was 30 years old and beginning to see success. According to an interview he gave to the Journal in 2019, he had a “Ferrari and Lamborghini in the parking lot of my apartment ... People who hadn’t met me thought I must be a drug dealer.” Sweeney has since gotten rid of his sports cars.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The first "Gears of War" franchise, which included nearly a dozen titles, went on to sell over 22 million units, making over $1 billion in revenue. (Microsoft bought the "Gears of War" franchise in 2014 for an "undisclosed amount.")

Source: CNBC, Gamepedia, Engadget

Epic Games is also responsible for games like "Shadow Complex" and the "Infinity Blade" series, both role-playing fighting games set in past and futuristic time periods. In 2013, Chinese tech company Tencent invested $330 million into Epic Games for a 40% stake.

Sources: Business Insider, CNBC

In 2015, Epic Games announced that the Unreal Engine would be made free, making it easier for any aspiring game developer to start their next project. The technology behind the Unreal Engine is regarded as "one of the most widely used engines in existence." By making the Unreal Engine free to use, Epic Games gets a cut when game developers and publishers sell games made with it — a significant part of the way the company generates revenue.

Source: Business Insider

Epic had revealed a new game it was working on called "Fortnite" in 2011, a survival-style game that Epic pictured as a small, indie title. But Epic didn't start offering early access to the game — at that point, it was simply "Fortnite Save the World," a cooperative shooter — until mid-2017.

Source: Polygon, IGN

Everything changed for Sweeney and Epic Games in September 2017 with the release of "Fortnite Battle Royale" — a free-to-play battle-royale-style version of the game where users "collect resources, make tools and weapons, and try to stay alive as long as possible." The game found worldwide success just a few months after its release, amassing over 200 million players across seven different game platforms.

Source: NBC, Business Insider

Sweeney, however, does not like to take credit for the success of "Fortnite" — he credits it largely to the game developers on his team. The Journal reported, "the entrepreneur is adamant about one thing: He did not create 'Fortnite' — his employees did. He didn't design or program the game" — but he did create the company that did.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Even though "Fortnite" is free-to-play, Epic Games receives revenue from it "entirely from in-game purchases, even though the virtual goods give players no competitive advantage." Character costumes, called "skins," seasonal "battle passes," and accessories can cost up to $10 each. With over 250 million "Fortnite" players, the company made over $2.5 billion from the game in 2018 alone, and over $4 billion since its release.

Sources: Business Insider, Business Insider, Engadget, The New York Times

With the blockbuster success of "Fortnite," Sweeney skyrocketed onto Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of $7 billion. This puts him above other billionaires like George Lucas and George Soros, but well below tech giants Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Epic Games currently employs more than 700 people.

Source: Business Insider

"Fortnite" has not only made Sweeney a richer man, but many "Fortnite" players as well, including Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, 28, who reportedly made $1 million a month playing the game and streaming it on Twitch (he has now switched to streaming platform Mixer). This past summer, Epic Games also hosted a "Fortnite World Cup" where players could win a piece of a $30 million prize.

Sources: CNBC, USA Today

Read more: This 28-year-old makes $500,000 every month playing 'Fortnite' — here's how he does it

Sweeney is a very casual guy. His workplace attire consists of t-shirts and cargo pants. When people go to an interview at Epic Games, they are advised not to wear a jacket and tie.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Despite having a sports car infatuation at the beginning of his career, Sweeney has since spent his millions on conservation efforts in North Carolina. He bought 193 acres in Alamance County for preservation and donated $15 million to protect 7,000 acres of forests in western North Carolina.

Source: Triad Business Journal

source https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-maker-epic-games-ceo-tim-sweeney-history-timeline-2019-10

#Entertainments

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velmaemyers88 · 5 years

Text

Cloud Companies Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Are Competing to Support Video Game Streaming

Satya Nadella has grown used to the naysayers. For years, Wall Street analysts questioned why Microsoft, the company famous for its Windows operating system and Office business suite, would waste money on something so seemingly trivial as video games. The calls grew louder when Nadella took the company’s helm in July 2014. Still smarting from his predecessor’s missteps in mobile devices, Nadella promised to steer Microsoft away from consumer distractions and toward its highly lucrative business services. Some even urged Microsoft to exit the gaming business altogether. “Four to five years ago, we and others were calling for them to divest that piece of the business,” says Daniel Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities and a longtime Microsoft observer. That tune has changed: Last year, Microsoft’s gaming revenue—which includes Xbox, Windows games, and a cut of third-party gaming sales—topped $10 billion for the first time.

When I ask Nadella why the company didn’t drop gaming, he chuckles. “There were a lot of things that a lot of people said Microsoft should be doing,” he says. “If I listened to everything that everybody else on the outside asks me to do, there would be very little innovation in this company.”

To be fair, in years past, Nadella had been hesitant to call gaming business core to Microsoft’s overall strategy. Despite its success, gaming represents about a tenth of Microsoft’s annual revenue. Cloud-computing growth is a big reason that the company’s market capitalization topped $1 trillion this year; its “intelligent cloud” unit, which includes its Azure cloud-computing service, generates as much revenue in a quarter as the gaming group generates in a year. (Hasta la vista, Halo!)

But what if you could hitch gaming’s fortunes to Microsoft’s potent cloud engine? Well, now you’re talking. Nadella’s blockbuster $2.5 billion acquisition of the enormously popular world-building game Minecraft in 2014 was a “bit of a head-scratcher” when it was first announced, says analyst Ives, but it’s now clear that the CEO was “planting the seed of how he viewed gaming as part of the broader business.” Microsoft wouldn’t just retain video games. Much as the company managed with Windows and Office, it would use the flywheel of its cloud-computing infrastructure to dramatically boost the scale of its gaming business—and the fortunes of every video game publisher it works with—far beyond what was previously possible.

Today, gaming is unquestionably “core”; in late 2017, Nadella elevated gaming lead Phil Spencer to the company’s executive leadership team to underscore the point. And executives are bullish on the prospects of cloud-driven gameplay. Julia White, who leads product management for Microsoft’s cloud platform, estimates that the business of selling Azure services to video game publishers is worth $70 billion—about as much as publicly traded transportation darling Uber. Most of today’s Internet-connected video games are developed in, and operated from, private data centers run by game publishers, she says. Technology trends in other industries suggest that won’t last. “Even though game developers are in a very different business,” she says, “they face the same trials and tribulations of a commercial bank or a retail company going to the cloud.”

To the cloudmaster go the spoils: In January, the Xbox maker shocked the gaming world by landing longtime console adversary Sony (of PlayStation fame) as an Azure customer with a promise to collaborate on future unspecified gaming projects. It was as if General Motors and Ford had announced a partnership to take on Tesla—an unmistakable sign that the competitive landscape would rapidly and dramatically change.

It was also an indication that Nadella’s mission for Microsoft would be more expansive than it originally appeared. When I ask him why Microsoft is working so hard to build a consumer entertainment service when it has positioned itself as an enterprise software company, he replies, “It’s a bigger business, right? It’s bigger than any other segment. Why would I not do gaming? It fits with what we do. It has connective tissue to the common platform. We have a point of view that what we can do is unique.”

The problem: so does every other player in this game.

For 39,000 viewers tuned into Twitch, Elvis might as well have entered the building. Richard Tyler Blevins, the 28-year-old celebrity “streamer” known to fans by his moniker Ninja, has logged on to the service to play a few public rounds of the popular “battle royale” game Fortnite with his buddy. As his avatar runs and leaps through the game’s virtual environment, weapon in hand, Blevins barks commands like an NFL quarterback at the snap—and his Twitch viewers hang on every mundanity. Their comments rush by in the chat window accompanying Ninja’s feed. Some viewers respond to every move Blevins’s character makes (“get that delay ninja”); others practically ignore the show to talk among themselves. (One thread of conversation among many: Why Finding Nemo was a “pretty good” Pixar movie.)

In other words, just another day on Twitch. Viewers—overwhelmingly male and mostly 34 or younger—watched a breathtaking 9.36 billion hours of gameplay on the platform last year, according to estimates by production company StreamElements. Twitch launched in 2011 as a spinoff of streaming video site Justin.tv, a pioneer in user-generated content. In 2014, Amazon reportedly spent $970 million to acquire the site, besting YouTube-owner Google in a bidding war. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates that Twitch brought in $400 million in revenue last year.

Twitch, which is housed in Amazon Web Services, the online retailer’s cloud-computing unit, has rapidly become a cornerstone of the company’s broader video gaming strategy. AWS, as Amazon Web Services is known, is already selling computing resources and developer tools to video game publishers. It’s also rumored to be working on a service that would allow it to stream video games themselves rather than merely video of people playing them. (The company declined to comment, though recent job listings for technical roles for “an unannounced AAA games business” suggest its intentions. Like minor league baseball, “AAA” denotes the highest level of play in terms of budget and production.)

Bonnie Ross, head of Microsoft-owned game studio 343 Industries, mugs with a statue of Master Chief, the protagonist of its Halo series, at the studio’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Photo by Chona Kasinger

Two major milestones in the gaming industry set the stage for a cloudy future. The first: The massive success of Epic Games’ Fortnite, which brought in an estimated $2.4 billion in sales last year and now claims 250 million registered players. Fortnite demonstrated that “cross-platform” games, playable across competing devices from Microsoft, Sony, Apple, and others, could amass audiences far larger than those of the previous era, when titles were limited to specific ecosystems. “Fortnite was critical in getting the message across to all platforms that they have to lower the barrier of entry to their respective walled gardens,” says Joost van Dreunen, head of games for market researcher SuperData.

The second? Twitch. The service demonstrated that people were just as happy to watch and cheer people playing games—call it the kid-sibling phenomenon—as they were to play the games themselves. That kind of interactivity proved that engagement and gameplay were not one and the same. The dynamic expands the addressable viewership for a given title. “Viewing is eclipsing gaming, and a lot of youth of today would say they played the game when they really viewed the game,” says Bonnie Ross, head of 343 Industries, the Microsoft studio that develops Halo.

For Microsoft’s part, the company never saw the spectatorship aspect coming. “Amazon has Microsoft on a treadmill,” a former executive says. Two years after Amazon bought Twitch, Microsoft acquired competing service Beam for an undisclosed amount. Rechristened Mixer, it has become the means by which Xbox customers can watch one another play games, logging 39.6 million hours of viewing in 2018, per StreamElements—a whopping 179% more than the previous year but still a distant third to Amazon’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube Live.

The summer sun blazes above the thousands of coders assembled for Google’s annual I/O developer conference in Mountain View, Calif., but the anxiety on display in the long line has little to do with the weather. The event’s attendees, who base their livelihoods on building software for as many users as possible, are keen to hear Google’s sales pitch for why they should create games for Stadia, an experimental cloud-gaming service that the search giant promises to debut in November.

Like most Silicon Valley presentations, the executives onstage overwhelm with ambitious assurances of technical prowess. Stadia’s complex cloud architecture will prevent the nasty networking hiccups that cause online gamers to throw down their controllers in frustration, Google’s representatives say. All gamers will need to do is open a tab in the Chrome web browser; with just a few clicks, they can play a high-speed, high-resolution title such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

Like their counterparts at Microsoft and Amazon, Google brass believe their vast data center empire gives them an edge on the technical demands of streaming high-end video game titles without interruption. Like its peers, Google has encouraged its consumer gaming and enterprise cloud groups to work together to ensure Stadia launches without the problems that have traditionally plagued online games.

Thomas Kurian, a longtime Oracle executive who is now chief executive of Google’s cloud business, says the company’s enterprise engineers built the networking technology that powers Stadia. Cloud gaming is a way for Google to penetrate a multibillion-dollar industry, Kurian says. “Our hope is that it’s expanding the market, not just being a replacement market,” he says. “For every person in the world that games on a professional desktop, there are probably three who can’t afford one.”

In other words: Why fight over a quarter of the market when the rest is greenfield? John Justice, a Microsoft veteran who now leads product development for Google Stadia, agrees. Gamers no longer want to “buy an expensive box every few years,” he says. Stadia, and services like it, are more accessible destinations to engage with games without the high barriers of entry found in the traditional console market.

Even the pricing plays a part: Though Stadia’s $129 bundle plus $9.99 monthly subscription has already been announced, Google says it is also evaluating a free version, with lower-quality graphics, that would debut later. Though the technological trajectory is clear, it’s still “early days” for the business model behind cloud gaming, Justice says. “Some people really do want transaction models, and some people want subscription models,” he says. “I don’t think we will say we will only go with one.”

It could take years to iron out the details. Though consumers would love a gaming model akin to Netflix or Spotify—pay a monthly fee, play titles to your heart’s content—it’s not yet clear that cloud providers have the leverage over game publishers to make that happen. Publishers have seen how platform pressures have changed the business of movies, music, magazines, and more. They don’t want to give up a share of their sales unless they’re certain that there are many more to be had in the long run.

Ubisoft, the French publisher best known for the Assassin’s Creed series, isn’t terribly concerned. “That’s less interesting to us,” says Chris Early, an Ubisoft executive who manages partnerships and revenue. The company in June revealed its own subscription service, called Uplay+, that is playable on personal computers and spans more than 100 titles in its own catalog, including Far Cry and Prince of Persia. It costs $14.99 a month and will also be available on Stadia next year. At this moment, “it makes less sense for a publisher to be part of an aggregated subscription model,” says Early. There are many proposals for how to sustainably monetize cloud gaming, he adds, but it remains unclear “who is going to pay whom.”

For now, publishers are focused on figuring out whether today’s successful titles make sense in the cloud—or whether all-new titles, native to the format, will replace familiar franchises. The interactivity of Twitch and the novelty of so-called freemium mobile games, like Candy Crush, showed that technological leaps could open new paths to gaming engagement. The possibilities that could emerge from running games on the same infrastructure that supports today’s artificial intelligence are something that technologists can only fathom.

“There will probably be evolutions of game design that we can’t even imagine yet,” says Early, “and they’re going to take advantage of the increase of cloud compute.”

Back in Redmond, I stop by Microsoft’s 343 Industries game studio, where employees welcome me to a visitor center—a shrine, really—celebrating the company’s Halo franchise, which has racked up $6 billion in sales since its debut. Statues depicting its heroes and villains tower over my head—a gallery of Greek gods, so to speak, for the gaming set. There are glass museum cases everywhere packed with memorabilia. On one wall is a rack of replicas of the virtual weaponry from the game, as intimidating in person as they appear on the screen. Bright orange tags with the word “prop” hang from their triggers in case someone takes the “incineration cannon” a little too seriously.

Founded in 2007 and named after a Halo character, 343 Industries is one of the older members of the Microsoft game portfolio. Last year alone, Microsoft acquired six game studios; at this year’s E3 industry confab, the company announced that it had picked up one more. Today, its Xbox Game Studios division is a federation of 15 semiautonomous studios that the company believes will be a key asset in the cloud-gaming wars—particularly against Amazon and Google, which lack strong titles of their own.

Not everyone sees it that way. Though Microsoft has won plaudits for successive editions of Halo and the Forza car-racing series, analysts have pointed to the titles’ relative age—Halo debuted in 2001; Forza first appeared four years later—as evidence that Microsoft’s homegrown studios have run out of ideas. “We have work to do there,” acknowledged Spencer, the Microsoft gaming chief. “We haven’t done our best work over the last few years with our first-party output.”

Frames from Halo Infinite, the forthcoming edition of the sci-fi game series, and Forza Horizon 4, a popular car-racing series. Both are published by Microsoft. Courtesy of Xbox Game Studios

That must change if Microsoft, the only video game veteran among the Big Three consumer cloud companies, hopes to maintain its natural advantage against Amazon and Google. After all, in video games, as in other parts of the media industry, content is king—which is why Microsoft’s rivals have moved to hire gaming veterans from top shops such as Electronic Arts (Madden NFL, Need for Speed) and 2K Games (Civilization, NBA 2K20) in an effort to build their own franchises. It is an uncanny echo of the moves by Amazon and Google to build their own premium programming, for Prime and YouTube, respectively, to compete with Netflix.

But Rome wasn’t built in a day. Seven years after establishing a gaming group in 2012, Amazon laid off dozens of game developers as it reorganized itself for a cloud-based future. (Amazon downplayed the news. “Amazon is deeply committed to games and continues to invest heavily in Amazon Game Studios, Twitch, Twitch Prime, AWS, our retail businesses, and other areas within Amazon,” a spokesperson tells Fortune.)

Van Dreunen, the SuperData analyst, believes it will take up to five years before cloud-driven efforts by the Big Three will significantly affect the traditional gaming industry. Until then, look for cloud computing’s leaders to continue investing in their data center infrastructure to support the “gradual rollout” of cloud-gaming services, he says.

Why would Amazon, Google, and Microsoft make so much noise about a future that’s so far away? It’s all a part of the “land and expand” business model familiar to the technology industry, says analyst Pachter: Give a speech, plant a flag, hope that early momentum snowballs into an insurmountable competitive advantage. After all, “Facebook wasn’t a billion-dollar idea until it was,” he says. “Uber wasn’t a billion-dollar idea until it was.”

Microsoft, in particular, has no intention of missing out. The company still regrets losing the mobile war to Google and its Android operating system. (Microsoft “missed being the dominant mobile operating system by a very tiny amount,” cofounder Bill Gates lamented earlier this year.) To underperform in an area where it has a head start of almost two decades would be, in a word, unconscionable.

Time to suit up, then. “We’re in gaming for gaming’s sake,” Nadella says. “It’s not a means to some other end.”

A version of this article appears in the August 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “Big Tech’s New Street Fight.”

More must-read stories from Fortune:

—Netflix isn’t in trouble without Friends. It just needs to work harder

—Could A24’s The Farewell be this summer’s biggest indie success story?

—Classic rock is reanimating Summer 2019’s movies

—How Marvel pictures the future post Spider-Man and Endgame

—Listen to our new audio briefing, Fortune 500 Daily

Follow Fortune on Flipboard to stay up-to-date on the latest news and analysis.

Credit: Source link

The post Cloud Companies Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Are Competing to Support Video Game Streaming appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

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jonesak47-blog · 6 years

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Social Influence of Fortnite

This blog post is written in a Starbucks as I drink a black coffee and eat a piece of warm banana bread.

The first line is an example of how I could influence someone to go to Starbucks and order a black coffee and eat banana bread. As unlikely as it is that this post goes viral and everyone scurries to the nearest Starbucks to follow my lead, it is not entirely impossible. Someone who has the same interests and hobbies as me could relate as to what I like to do, and think that since I like it, they would too. This post on the internet is a way that I can reach a mass amount of individuals directly, as socialnomics would call it, world of mouth.

Instead of my previous example of social influence, let me mention a more well known individual that some of you may have heard of. Tyler "Ninja" Blevins is a professional video game player and Twitch streamer. His rise to fame spiked increasingly when the game Fortnite became a trending area of popularity by people across the world. Seriously, everyone is playing it.

Twitch is a social streaming site where players can live stream the game they are playing while a camera shows their face and they are able to interact directly with the individuals who tune in to watch their gameplay. It's a mixture of video blogging and entertainment. As crazy as it sounds, it is an extremely popular and high paying gig for popular Twitch streamers. And Ninja, is the epitome of popular when it comes to Twitch.

His peak number of who tuned into his stream was a little over 635,000, when he teamed up with hip-hop megastar Drake and Travis Scott, as well as Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster. Since then, he averages nearly 100,000 viewers per night and has over eight million followers. That is quite a lot of people to reach on a social platform.

With the growing popularity of Twitch streaming as well as his sponsorship affiliations with Red Bull, Bud Light, Logitech and Amazon, Blevins makes roughly 500,000 dollars a month. His social platform is centered around the motto of "making the world a more positive place." He constantly uses his earnings to donate to numerous charities and even rescue animals from shelters on the road to be euthanized. In one day alone he raised over 100,000 dollars for Suicide Prevention charities. On another stream for charity he raised 500,000 dollars for St. Judes Children Hospital.

Just last night there was a celebrity professional x amateur tournament where over two million people tuned in. Blevins emerged victorious with three million dollars as a reward for him to donate to any charity of his choice.

In the end, his social platform and fan base allows for people to donate to his gameplay and personality just because he does something that his fans enjoy. They drink Red Bull because Ninja does, they use logitech technology because Ninja does, they donate to charity because Ninja promotes the idea.

He uses his social popularity and world of mouth social platform to progress the world as much as he can.

#GCWeb18 Twitch socialnomics fortnite

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Ninja is Getting His Own Adidas Superstar Shoes and They Ain’t Great

August 3, 2020 3:39 PM EST

If anyone says that this is “just a shoe”, I’m going to lose my mind.

That Tyler “Ninja” Blevins fellow is a popular dude. Not only is he still reaping the benefits from his multi-million dollar partnership with Mixer (which didn’t even end up lasting a full year), but he’s also looking to expand into other realms such as Hollywood. In the more near term, the iconic streamer is now set to release a new signature shoe with Adidas later this week.

In what will be Ninja’s second shoe with Adidas, the streamer who made it big by playing Fortnite is now set to let loose his own iteration of the popular Superstar silhouette later this week. The shoe, which is called “TIME IN”, is set to release on Saturday, August 8, and features Ninja’s own name on the side in gold lettering. A price for the shoes still hasn’t appeared online.

The day has arrived, my “TIME IN” Superstar with @adidasOriginals lands August 8th! Thank you so much for the support, and don’t forget to put that TIME IN. #createdwithadidas pic.twitter.com/YDdYHp6kVA

— Ninja (@Ninja) July 31, 2020

Okay, so as an amateur sneakerhead myself, allow me to weigh in on these new Ninja shoes. The Adidas Superstars are actually some of my favorite casual shoes to rock for any occasion. Before I got more heavily into collecting sneakers again within the past few months, what you would’ve used to see me regularly wearing day-to-day would be a pair of Superstars, either in the black or white colorway.

That said, I’m really not a huge fan of Ninja’s own pair of Superstar shoes. The things that it throwing me for a loop more than anything is how overtly white it is. While there is some blue sprinkled in, and it’s a shade of blue that I actually dig, it doesn’t do enough to make the shoes themselves pop.

Based on the initial images that were shown in Ninja’s tweet above, I’m also kind of confused about why the tongue looks so thin, especially compared to standard Superstar models. The off-white sole is the one part of the shoe that I actually think I like, but depending on the material, it could also grow yellow over time and really make the whole thing look even worse.

So if you’re asking me whether or not these Ninja “TIME IN” shoes are a cop or drop, I’m gonna have to go with drop. Superstar shoes are always worth rocking, but in my opinion, you’d be better off just grabbing a normal pair in the white/navy blue colorway instead. Hopefully, if Ninja has another Adidas collab in the future, it’ll be better than this one.

August 3, 2020 3:39 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/08/ninja-is-getting-his-own-adidas-superstar-shoes-and-they-aint-great/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ninja-is-getting-his-own-adidas-superstar-shoes-and-they-aint-great

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cryptofeedzposts · 5 years

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The best gadgets of 2019

Bigger, lighter ultraportable laptops

Cherlynn Low Reviews Editor

Good lord, did laptops get a facelift this year. After all the progress that notebooks as a category made last year, I wasn’t expecting to see much more improvement in 2019. I was wrong. This year, Dell launched a new XPS 13 2-in-1, which my colleague Devindra called the “perfect ultraportable,” and HP released the Elite Dragonfly, which the company markets as “lighter than air.”

No device is actually lighter than air, but this year, mainstream laptops certainly got a whole lot lighter and thinner than before while growing more powerful, without sacrificing battery life. That’s to be expected, after years of incremental improvements, but we also have to give Intel a little credit. Its Project Athena program rolled out this year, spurring the development of more compact, lightweight ultraportables that last all day. Shout out also to the Galaxy Book Flex and Ion, which launched late in the year and proved that Samsung can make gorgeous, super sleek notebooks. And even though the Snapdragon-powered Galaxy Book S didn’t actually arrive in time to make this year’s list, my hands-on with it left me impressed by its lightweight, attractive exterior.

Aided by potent processors like NVIDIA’s Studio products, laptop makers also delivered powerhouse notebooks targeted at creators who need the beef for editing multiple 4K video streams but don’t want gaudy or chunky gaming machines. Acer and ASUS both made devices for these purposes, with the ConceptD and ProArt StudioBook sub-brands respectively. These proved that laptops could pack plenty of muscle without weighing a ton.

But 2019 also saw the arrival of the LG Gram 17 — a surprisingly sleek machine for having a 17-inch screen — and the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3. Apple also released a new 16-inch MacBook Pro, delighting power users and fans of usable keyboards. While these larger laptops still have their flaws, the fact that they’re no longer chunky slabs of metal and plastic is a promising sign of bigger and better to come in 2020 and beyond.

iPhone 11 Pro

Mat Smith Bureau Chief, UK

It’s hard for any smartphone to break out in 2019. Especially in a year where the industry was obsessed with folding gimmicks and a 5G network not ready for prime time. Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro launched with a brighter screen, was predictably faster and has better — and more — cameras. It’s costlier, sure. In fact, it’s Apple’s most expensive phone ever. But it also tackles one of the perennial issues with nearly all smartphones: mediocre battery life.

The 11 Pro Max is a barely noticeable 0.02 inches thicker than the iPhone XS Max, but with that extra space and a new L-shaped battery cell, the latest 11 Pro Max adds roughly four more hours of use compared to its predecessor. My iPhone 11 Pro Max consistently clocks almost two days on a single charge. It’s better than any smartphone I’ve owned in the last few years.

And then there are the cameras. After leading the smartphone camera revolution, a decade ago, Apple has recently lagged behind the competition. With the iPhone 11 Pro, it’s caught up. In fact, the company has arguably reclaimed the top spot. From Deep Fusion, which adds improved textures and detail, to the ultra-wide-angle cameras for squeezing in crowds, landscapes and more, to the improved night shooting mode, the iPhone 11 Pro is on equal photography footing with the Pixel 4 or the Galaxy Note 10.

There are other highlights, too. The 11 Pro phones come with a high-speed USB-C charger (and a USB-C to Lightning cable), making charging considerably faster. It also means I can connect my iPhone to my year-old MacBook Pro’s USB-C ports without a dongle. Instead of having to plug it in overnight, I can charge the iPhone 11 Pro Max to 50 percent in just thirty minutes. Better battery life isn’t the sexiest feature, but it’s never been more appreciated.

Powerful processors and GPUs

Steve Dent Associate Editor

The PC market is no longer moribund, thanks in large part to devices that are more interesting and powerful. That’s certainly true in the gaming and content creation markets, and for that, we can largely thank AMD and NVIDIA. At the same time, we’ve never had so many lightweight but powerful laptops, and we give Intel credit there.

The processor of the year for gaming and content creation is AMD’s $750, 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X. Intel still has the edge in gaming with its Core i9 9900K, sure, and that model is also cheaper at $500. But the Ryzen 9 3950X is really close, and once you switch over to content creation tasks, those eight extra cores let it destroy the 9900K.

Best of all, AMD’s new Ryzen chips have forced Intel to drop prices, making powerful PCs cheaper across the board. For instance, Intel’s 18-core 9980XE launched in 2017 cost a cool $2,000, but its successor, the 18-core 10980XE costs just half of that. That’s because Intel had to react to AMD’s Threadripper 3970X, which has 32 cores and costs $1,999.

Last year, we called out NVIDIA’s RTX 2080 Ti as one of the worst products of 2018, thanks to its high price and abysmal ray-tracing support. To its credit, though, NVIDIA has introduced new features that make its RTX lineup more desirable, particularly the RTX Studio drivers. Those put NVIDIA’s ray tracing to work, speeding up 3D apps like Blender, and making video and photo editing quicker and more stable, too. On top of that, games like Metro Exodus and Control are finally making better use of ray tracing, and we can expect more of the same in 2020.

Intel is losing in the high-end CPU market, but it’s still thumping AMD when it comes to laptops. Devices like Dell’s XPS 13 2-in-1 show that Intel has crammed a ton of power into low-energy, long-lasting devices, with big improvements in on-board graphics. Anyone getting a PC with a 10th-gen Intel CPU will see much better performance than last year’s machines, and we’ll have lots of great notebooks to look forward to next year.

Sonos and IKEA Symfonisk Table Lamp

Igor Bonifacic Contributing Writer

We’ll admit: Sonos and IKEA’s Symfonisk table lamp looks goofy. But get past its unusual appearance and you’ll find one of the most versatile gadgets released this year.

As an affordable entry into the Sonos ecosystem, the Symfonisk lamp has almost everything you could want. Setup via the Sonos app is easy whether you’re adding to an existing sound system or starting from scratch. What’s more, the lamp sounds almost as good as the more expensive Sonos One, which is one of the best speakers you can buy. Best of all, even though it’s not a premium product, Sonos didn’t skimp on features like AirPlay 2 compatibility.

What you won’t find are any microphones onboard for Google Assistant and Alexa support. Some people might prefer this; it’s one less device listening to their conversations. For everyone else, it’s easy enough to integrate the lamp with your existing smart speakers for voice control.

But the Symfonisk lamp isn’t just a good speaker, it’s also a great lamp. Although it uses smaller and less common E12 light bulbs, it still adds a lot of warmth to a room. Its versatility as both a speaker and a lamp means you’ll consistently get a lot of use out of it. Add to that its low price and the Symfonisk lamp is one of those rare collaborations that actually delivers the best of both partner companies.

8BitDo SN30 Pro+

Kris Holt Contributing Writer

The Nintendo Switch is a fantastic system, with great games and unrivaled portability for a console. But its standard controller setup is far from ideal.

Joy-Cons are terrific if you’re hanging out with a friend and want to fire up your Switch for co-op action. But when you have to use both Joy-Cons for a single-player game, particularly one that requires dual thumbsticks, they’re not the most practical. In fact, the right thumbstick is positioned too awkwardly to comfortably use for very long. But thankfully, there are plenty of other options out there.

The Switch Pro Controller is a solid alternative, but I much prefer 8BitDo’s excellent SN30 Pro+. It feels far more natural to hold than Nintendo’s controllers, and I have no problem using it for hours at a time. I love the SNES/DualShock 4 mashup approach to the design, too. I haven’t encountered any significant latency issues, and its compatibility with Android, Raspberry Pi, PC and macOS is a nice bonus. The customization options on the 8BitDo Ultimate Software are also terrific and a boon for accessibility.

The SN30 Pro+ makes the Switch even more of a joy, especially for playing Overwatch or Fortnite on the go. I only wish 8BitDo included a headphone jack for more flexibility, especially for when I dock my Switch and I’m across the room from my TV. Still, the controller is an almost-perfect solution for my Switch setup.

Mixer

Jessica Conditt Senior Editor

Mixer has come a long way in a short time. As recently as last year, we were describing Mixer as “Microsoft’s Twitch rival” in headlines, worried that people wouldn’t recognize the service by name. Today, Mixer has 30 million monthly active users, exclusivity deals with a roster of high-profile streamers and plenty of practice in the tech-news spotlight. Mixer has Ninja. What more needs to be said?

Not only did Mixer steal Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, the world’s most popular streamer, from Twitch in August, but a handful of other popular names have followed suit. This year, Mixer has picked up Cory “King Gothalion” Michael, Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek and Soleil “Ewok” Wheeler, and Twitch has only recently responded with exclusive acquisitions of its own. Of course, the follower counts of Twitch’s most recent members — Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo, Saqib “LIRIK” Zahid and Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar — reach 10.73 million combined, while Ninja alone had 14.7 million followers when he ditched Twitch. Ninja racked up more than 1 million followers in his first week on Mixer.

At one point, it seemed as if Twitch was the undisputed, permanent champion of video game streaming, but a handful of moderation missteps and the loss of key personalities this year have left the company vulnerable. Of course, all of the main live-streaming platforms have the backing of massive tech companies — Twitch is owned by Amazon, Mixer is the property of Microsoft and (surprise!) YouTube Gaming is run by Google — so they have significant runway to try new things, fail and try again. But in 2019, Mixer got a lot of steps right and laid the foundation for the service’s continued growth in 2020.

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The Masked Singer introduced the final four of its 16 new season 2 contestants on Wednesday’s episode. Eagle, Flower, Fox and Penguin took the stage for the first time, but Eagle’s run on the show ended almost as soon as it began.

The Eagle was sent home at the end of the night and revealed to be Dr. Drew Pinsky.

“Very bizarre,” Pinsky, 61, told host Nick Cannon about his brief tenure on the Fox singing competition.

RELATED: Laila Ali Shares Why She Originally Turned Down Masked Singer and the Advice Dad Muhammad Gave

Judges Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy, Nicole Scherzinger and Robin Thicke offered their initial guesses for the last crop of disguised performers and Cannon tried to help facilitate by asking each contestant how they embody their character.

After the studio audience voted Eagle and Penguin as the losers of their faceoffs, they went head-to-head in the smackdown round. The judges ultimately sent Eagle packing after Pinsky’s performance of “These Boots Are Made for Walking.”

Pinsky joins this season’s already-eliminated contestants: videogame streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins (Ice Cream) and Olympic ice skater Johnny Weir (Egg), who were ousted during week 1, and fighter Laila Ali (Panda), who got the boot at the end of week 2’s show.

Here’s how everything went down when the remaining batch of Masked Singer newbies made their debuts on Wednesday:

Faceoff No. 1: Flower vs. Eagle

FLOWER

Clues: a doctorate degree from Temple University; baking; bedazzled sunglasses; crafting; “Some say I blossom in every field I plant myself in.”; “I don’t even go to the grocery store without lipstick or pumps on.”; “After sewing the seeds of this empire with my bare hands, I’m just ready to have a little fun and be free.”; “A vision of love.”; “What’s love got to do with it anyway?” Song: “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton Judges’ guesses: Bjork, Mariah Carey, Taraji P. Henson, Jennifer Hudson, Jessie J, Patti LaBelle What makes them the Flower? “Because I’m beautiful and I smell so good.”

EAGLE

Clues: teaching a class; an old television; a serious health scare; loss of a parent; “I have soared to great heights as the face of my field.”; “I spent so much time listening to other people’s stories that I’ve neglected writing my own.”; “I’m gonna prove I don’t just hang out with rockstars, I am one.” Song: “I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That)” by Meatloaf Judges’ guesses: Adam Carolla, Craig Ferguson, Jeff Goldblum, Bret Michaels, Pauly Shore, Howard Stern What makes them the Eagle? “Like an eagle, I can see things miles away that other people may not see.”

Winner: Flower

RELATED VIDEO: ‘Masked Singer’ Host Nick Cannon Admits He Would DM Lizzo ‘For Sure’

Faceoff No. 2: Penguin vs. Fox

PENGUIN

Clues: a hit list with classroom bully, comedy club owner, Hollywood casting director, exes, the press and myself listed; pictures of two females on her vanity; a sign that reads “I’m not your secretary”; “It’s in my DNA to strive for my voice to be heard.”; “My whole life I’ve been told I’m not pretty enough, not smart enough, not funny enough.”; “I’m leading the march, who’s with me?” Song: “The Middle” by Marren Morris, Zedd and Grey What makes them the Penguin? “Everything is not as black and white as it seems.”

RELATED: The Masked Singer: Who’s Been Revealed So Far?

FOX

Clues: comic book; playing videogames; a child fox playing videogames; “I’ve definitely done my best work at night.”; “Are you ready for a bedtime story little one?”; “Superhero persona who loves to entertain.”; “I dabbled in many different genres from Doogie to Doubtfire.”; “My two identities can finally become one.” Song: “This Love” by Maroon 5 Judges’ guesses: Jamie Foxx, Tyrese Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Anthony Mackie What makes them the Fox? “I’m quick, I refuse to be caged in and I’m crafty.”

Winner: Fox

SMACKDOWN

Eagle brought it on “These Boots Are Made for Walking” and Penguin boogied down to Fifth Harmony’s “Worth It,” which McCarthy deemed a “weird episode of Angry Birds” and Scherzinger called “twerk of the penguins.”

Ultimately, the judges chose Penguin to flap its wings into the next round.

The Masked Singer airs Wednesdays (8 p.m. ET) on Fox.

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/31YhW2O

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