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14-Year-Old Earned $200,000 Playing Fortnite on YouTube (dailyherald.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
Griffin Spikoski spends as much as 18 hours a day glued to his computer screen playing the wildly popular, multiplayer video game "Fortnite." His YouTube channel -- where he regularly uploads videos of himself playing the online game -- has nearly 1.2 million subscribers and more than 71 million views; figures that have netted him advertisers, sponsorships and a steady stream of income. Last year, that income totaled nearly $200,000... "It's kind of like my job," Griffin told ABC affiliate WABC-TV, noting he plays about eight hours a day in his Long Island home...
His big break came last year when Spikoski beat a well-known Fortnite player and uploaded a video of the battle to YouTube, quickly resulting in 7.5 million views, according to WABC-TV. It didn't take long, the station reported, for the teenager to make his first $100 from Twitch. Not long after, his father, Chris said, everything changed. "Two months went by and we were like, 'Alright, we're going to need to get an accountant and get a financial adviser,'" he said.
Spikoski's parents told filmmakers that they decided to remove their son from high school as his dedication to gaming deepened... Spikoski's parents said their son had been pushing them to allow him to pursue online schooling. With his success growing, they eventually relented. "It's been his dream to be a gamer, to be in e-sports, just to be in this field since he was a kid," Spikoski said, noting that his son began playing video games at age three. "We don't really see that you need a 9-to-5 job to get by in life and you can actually have fun with a career and enjoy your love and do what you love and make a living out of it," he added.
His big break came last year when Spikoski beat a well-known Fortnite player and uploaded a video of the battle to YouTube, quickly resulting in 7.5 million views, according to WABC-TV. It didn't take long, the station reported, for the teenager to make his first $100 from Twitch. Not long after, his father, Chris said, everything changed. "Two months went by and we were like, 'Alright, we're going to need to get an accountant and get a financial adviser,'" he said.
Spikoski's parents told filmmakers that they decided to remove their son from high school as his dedication to gaming deepened... Spikoski's parents said their son had been pushing them to allow him to pursue online schooling. With his success growing, they eventually relented. "It's been his dream to be a gamer, to be in e-sports, just to be in this field since he was a kid," Spikoski said, noting that his son began playing video games at age three. "We don't really see that you need a 9-to-5 job to get by in life and you can actually have fun with a career and enjoy your love and do what you love and make a living out of it," he added.
If he can get $500,000 in earnings invested conservatively and not touch it for ten years, he would then have roughly $40,000 per year in income without drawing down.
His parents made the right move, if they don't spend a ton of his income just trying to manage it.
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
Yep, being a professional gamer is certainly a dream job. And do you know what else is a dream job? Being a financial advisor to someone with a crapload of money and a 9th grade education (yeah yeah, he's going to continue by taking online courses ..I'm sure that will work well in the priority list along side his 18 hours per day of fortnite)
There's no way he's ending up with a million. His financial advisors are going to milk the crap out of that. The kid has a 9th grade education. He's not going to know better. There would be hope that the parents would be able to keep tabs on that, but come on...they're letting him drop out in 9th grade. There no chance anyone in this family is going to be able to protect his interests against the sharks
It's really just a terrible media event. Regardless of how this boy's future pans out, the publicity of all of this encourages more young people to abandon practical study and try to become "professional video gamers" themselves. It's okay to dream, and to have fun gaming. It's bad news to become deluded to the point of discarding your education.
Well, yeah, while this family should be treating this as the equivalent of winning the lottery, they are instead treating it as sustainable.
Good luck with that. Everyone in this story is fucked and the only one I feel bad for is the kid who does not know better.
> Yes but how much would that cost now?
US News and World Report does probably the best-known ratings of universities. Here are the ratings for engineering programs at Georgia Tech:
#2 in Aerospace /Aeronautical / Astronautical
#3 in Biomedical
#2 in Chemical
#2 in Civil
#5 in Computer
#4 in Electrical / Electronic / Communications
#4 in Environmental / Environmental Health
For out-of-state students, the tuition for a Georgia Tech master's degree which he can do online (he'd probably like that) is $5,100. Here's the master's in computer science, as one example:
https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/p...
You CAN pay $12 for a cup of coffee, or $1. You can pay $21 for a Sekai-ichi apple, or take your pick of many delicious apples for 25 cents at your nearest grocery store. College is the same - if you totally ignore costs, spend like money is meaningless, you can radically overpay. You can spend $70K on an advanced degree in women's studies or Inuit history. Or you can spend your money like - it's your money. Shop for a good value.
In my case, I (recently) did a bachelor's degree program in which many of the courses were tied to industry certifications. For example, for a networking course the final exam was the Cisco CCNA. Because of that, half way through school I had already achieved multiple respected certifications, which doubled my income even before I finished my degree. I graduated with more money in the bank than I had when I started - the exact opposite of piling up student loan debt.
There are car dealers who will gladly charge you $30K for the same car you can buy elsewhere for $8K. Universities are no different.
If you can barely read, you think you're going to be able to do the mountains of paperwork involved in being a major landlord?
That never stopped Donald Trump from being a landlord — or POTUS.
To be fair, his father realising they needed professional help suggests that they're at least trying to assure the money is properly managed and invested.
Depends on his parents.
If they're saying, "Ok, $200k means you can have your choice of top gaming peripherals and an extra $20/week pocket money, we'll invest the rest" then he'll be fine.
If they're saying, "Did you want a Ferrari or a Maserati for your 15th birthday?" then yeah, he's fucked.