Stream sniping is a somewhat common problem in the world of video game streaming, as recording oneself playing video games means showing off one’s location in-game to the entire world. For the uninitiated, stream sniping is when players use a streamer’s stream to find their exact location, and use that to their advantage to get a cheap kill. It’s something that Fortnite player Ninja deals with often, even during his special New Year’s Eve stream, but luckily for the popular streamer, this stream sniping attempt failed miserably.
In this particular Fortnite match, Ninja was at Retail Row, whereas the person attempting to stream snipe him landed at a mountain with airplanes on it, and used one to head straight to Ninja’s location. Ninja was in the midst of battling someone else, and had built a wooden structure during that fight. The stream sniper then swooped in, smashing the plane through Ninja’s structure, and then jumped out of the plane to fight the world’s most famous Fortnite streamer one on one.
Part of the reason why Ninja has become the top Twitch streamer in the world is due to how good he is at Fortnite, so it should come as no surprise that the stream sniper was no match for him. Even though Ninja was already damaged, the stream sniper failed in his attempt, and was put down rather quickly.
Stream sniping is a unique problem when it comes to video game streaming. One could argue that it’s cheap and should be against the rules, but at the same time, it’s not really the fault of the person doing the stream sniping that the streamer is broadcasting their location to the world. There are arguments for both sides, though it’s safe to say Ninja is firmly against stream sniping.
There’s a running joke with Ninja about how upset he gets about stream sniping, largely stemming from past incidents where he reported people to Epic Games that he believed were stream sniping. Of course, it’s not always easy to prove that someone was stream sniping anyway, so it seems difficult to accurately enforce rules against it.
Regardless of how one feels about stream sniping, it can definitely be funny to see it fail. Maybe the kid in the clip will do better if they get another shot at Ninja sometime in the future.
Fortnite is out now in early access for Android, iOS, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.