Fortnite legend Ninja claims Epic Games fumbled his Icon Series skin release, costing everyone billions.
Ninja’s Fortnite skin debuted on January 17, 2020, during Chapter 2, Season 1 – a notoriously dull period for the game. Players were frustrated with stagnant updates, an uninspired map, and a barebones loot pool.
While fans embraced the skin, Ninja himself wasn’t thrilled. He felt the timing was all wrong, calling it a missed opportunity of epic proportions.
Speaking on a podcast with FaZe, Ninja revealed his biggest gripe: Epic rejected his skin pitch during Fortnite’s meteoric rise.
Ninja says Fortnite botched his skin by dropping it in “the worst chapter ever”
Back in 2018, Ninja was the face of Fortnite, breaking records with 12-hour streams, playing with Drake, and drawing in millions of viewers. He approached Epic then, at Fortnite’s peak, but got a hard “no.”
“They gave it to me in the worst chapter ever, bro,” Ninja said bluntly. “140 days of no updates. No new map. Players were dropping off, and then they give me the skin.”
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Ninja’s frustration didn’t stop there. He argued that launching his skin during Fortnite’s heyday would have been a no-brainer financially. “Obviously, we would have made a metric ton of money… literally hundreds of millions. I’m sitting here thinking, ‘Don’t you want to make billions of dollars?’”
Ninja referenced a time when his creator code alone brought in $5 million in a month, meaning Epic pocketed roughly $50 million. It’s hard to disagree bringing a Ninja skin to the game earlier would’ve generated even more profit.
Instead, Epic waited. By the time the Ninja skin dropped, Fortnite had cooled off. Ninja suspects internal decision-makers didn’t recognize his cultural clout, calling their lack of action “tone-deaf” and “business people not understanding pop culture.”
As of 2024, Fortnite Icon Skin series includes several famous celebrities and streamers, which ranges from rapper Snoop Dogg to Spanish streamer Rubius.
Still, Ninja wasn’t bitter (well, not entirely). He praised Fortnite’s current creator-first approach but blamed the missed opportunity on out-of-touch decision-makers. To add insult to injury, Ninja regrets another financial choice – flying private.