Report: EA Paid Ninja 1 Million to Stream Apex Legends

We already know that Twitch Streamer Ninja is a pretty well-off guy. He’s consistently got a lot of people watching his stream (around 40k), and he’s frequently called upon within the industry to either promote games or star in their own promotions. It’s not always an easy job (I lose patience with a game in an hour, imagine playing the same one all day every day), but for him, it’s certainly proven lucrative. He has even suggested that, on the average month, he earns about $500k.

But some months pay better than others, and it’s suggested via a Reuters report that EA, in a bid to get the world talking about Apex Legends, paid the man “around one million dollars” to play Apex Legends on his stream on the day it was launched, and to tweet about the game.

$1 million to play a new Battle Royale game.

The details of this deal are mired in mystery. EA doesn’t deny that a deal took place, but insists that everything was done by the book and that Ninja disclosed the fact he had been paid for the stream. They also insisted they only paid for “influencers” like Ninja to play Apex Legends until February 5, one day after the game was launched, at which point all streams were organic.

But it’s worth noting that Ninja streamed Apex Legends for around twelve days before returning to Fortnite, and labeled some Apex Legends tweets with #ad well past that supposed cut-off point. So the question is if he stuck around because he liked the game, or if he was contractually obligated to like the game for a twelve-day period but since he wasn’t paid past the first day, EA considers it fair game.

Either way, it must have worked at least a little bit, because Apex Legends is huge.