Sitting atop that list is, unsurprisingly, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. The Fornite king raked in $17 million during 2019. Notably, Ninja's earnings came, not from his work as an eSports player, but mostly from endorsements, fees and sponsorships. He signed an unprecedented deal with Mixer, that Forbes estimates is worth upwards of $30 million. He's got his own Adidas sneaker, a partnership with Red Bull, has appeared on The Tonight Show, and now, has his own character in Fortnite. The professional gaming landscape has grown by leaps and bounds since Ninja's start with Halo 3 in 2009.

At number two, sits Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg. PewDiePie ranks as the top individual YouTuber with  $15 million in earnings. He's also the most subscribed-to YouTuber with 103 million subscribers. Despite his popularity, he's routinely lost endorsements for videos and jokes deemed anti-Semitic and racist. 

Continuing the trend of influencer rather than competitor, are the third and fourth players on the list, Preston Arsement and Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach. Both brought in $14 million last year (Preston ranks slightly above Markiplier) by bringing their fun personalities to their playthroughs. 

Check out the full list of the top ten highest-paid gamers below.

1) Ninja (Tyler Blevins) - $17 million.
2) PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) - $15 million.
3) Preston (Preston Arsement) - $14 million.
4) Markiplier (Mark Fischbach) - $14 million.
5) Shroud (Michael Grzesiek) - $12.5 million.
6) DanTDM (Daniel Middleton) - $12 million.
7) VanossGaming (Evan Fong) - $11.5 million.
8) Jacksepticeye (Sean McLoughlin) - $11 million.
9) TimTheTatman (Timothy Betar) - $8 million.
10) Nickmercs (Nick Kolcheff) - $6 million.

The massively successful game managed to see $1.8 billion this year, leading the way again for top earners, according to research from Nielsen-owned SuperData. In 2018, Fortnite set a record for earnings with $2.4 billion.

Free-to-play games as a whole lead the way in earnings this year. Nexon’s Dungeon Fighter Online, Tencent’s Honour of Kings, Riot Games's League of Legends, King Digital’s Candy Crush Saga, Niantic’s Pokémon Go, and SmileGate’s Crossfire all earned over $1 billion in revenue.

The top two titles for AAA games this year were EA’s FIFA 19, which earned $786 million, followed by Infinity Ward's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which earned $645 million.

SuperData projects 2020 to be a major year for AAA blockbusters with CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, which stars Keanu Reeves and Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II both releasing in a few months.

To cap off 2020 will be the release of the next generation of consoles. Both Sony's PlayStation 5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X are expected to release by Holiday 2020. SuperData describes the impact of their release on gaming sales as, “a large expansion opportunity for digital games as powerful hardware enables new, more immersive experiences."