After taking an extended break from streaming, Michael Grzesiek, aka Shroud, has returned to Twitch, nearly breaking Ninja’s viewer record. On Wednesday, the Canadian gamer began streaming at 7 p.m. and reached a peak concurrent viewer count of 516,289, just under Ninja’s 600,000 record.

In total, almost 3 million people watched throughout the evening, with an average of 222,888 on at any given time. At a reported $3.50 per subscription, he made an estimated $57,834 for seven hours of work, without counting donations and extras. As of August, Shroud’s Twitch channel has more than 7.3 million followers, ranking as the third most-followed channel on the platform, while his YouTube channel has over 6.4 million subscribers.

On October 24, 2019, Shroud, 26, officially announced that he was moving from Twitch to Mixer, which reportedly offered him a $10 million contract after Ninja announced a similar deal earlier that year. In June, Microsoft announced that it was shutting down Mixer and partnering with Facebook Gaming. Although Shroud reportedly received a lucrative offer from Facebook Gaming, he declined the proposal and took a substantial contract payout from Mixer.

When he reactivated his Twitch account, Shroud still had 7 million followers, which allowed him to quickly monetize his return to live streaming. He began playing Riot’s Games’ tactical shooter VALORANT with roughly 400,000 to 475,000 active viewers. The gamer is responsible for more than 80% of the viewership of VALORANT, which is now at the top of the most-viewed Twitch charts.

Known for his precision (with some calling him a human aimbot) in the first-person shooter video game genre, Shroud has streamed for more than 7,000 hours on Twitch, and has acquired over 364 million total views. He has an estimated net worth of $12 million. In 2019, he was named Content Creator of the Year at The Game Awards. The coronavirus pandemic has directly impacted his current earning potential on Twitch. According to a report published by StreamElements and Arsenal.gg, Twitch grew a full 56% in terms of hours watched between the first quarter and the second quarter in 2020 as more viewers spent time at home.

Source: Metro

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