Top Aussie Gaming Champions and Earners for 2020

Despite the restrictions, lockdowns and cancellations that plagued 2020 thanks to COVID-19, esports and gaming as a whole continued to thrive. While larger events and tournaments saw cancellations, streamers saw new all time highs in terms of viewership, and new consoles were sold out from day one.

Esports and gaming have never been in a better position for growth – as professional and competitive gaming continues to enter the mainstream, and access to streaming and gaming platforms continues to improve, the future of gaming is looking good.

Taking a closer look at esports in Australia, the postponement of events such as the Melbourne Esports Open (as well as travel restrictions and other limitations) will have had a serious impact on the earning of Aussie eSports champions – however, the gamers with a presence in the worlds of streaming and YouTube have been making a killing.

With this being said, here are the top Aussie gaming earners of 2020.

LazarBeam

First on the list of top Aussie earners in 2020 is LazarBeam (Lannan Eacott) – this is a streamer who has seen insane growth in recent years – today, he has over 17 million subscribers on YouTube, making him one of the most popular gaming YouTubers in the world. His yearly estimate for subscriber growth, based on how he is currently doing, is 2.4 million – with this in mind, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see LazarBeam double his sub count over the next few years.

LazarBeam only began streaming games in 2015 – he chose the name of his channel based on the name of one of his Runescape characters. From here, he moved towards the Madden NFL game, and then Fortnite in 2018. This is where LazarBeam really took off, and just one year later his channel had already reached 10 million subscribers.

Based on his YouTube statistics, it is estimated that LazarBeam earns anywhere between $400,000 and $7 million from YouTube alone.

Muselk

Next on the list is Muselk – also known as Elliot Watkins, this Aussie gamer got started back in 2012, and has since achieved quite a following. Gaining popularity as he played games like Overwatch, Team Fortress 2 and Rainbow Six Siege, he now focuses on popular games such as Fortnite.

Similarly to Lazarbeam, Muselk is also streaming exclusively on YouTube – on the platform, he boasts almost 10 million subscribers, and his estimated earnings are anywhere between around $100,000 and $1.5 million USD.

Lachlan

Now for yet another streamer and YouTube personality – Lachlan (Lachlan Ross Power) is a gamer who is active on YouTube as well as Twitch, not to mention the usual social media platforms. Out of all Aussie YouTubers, he ranks sixth in terms of subscribers, with a subscriber count nearing 15 million.

Today, the majority of content that Lachlan puts out is centred around Fortnite. Prior to this, he had a following thanks to content surrounding Pokemon Go, Minecraft, and Pixelmon, in an evolution of content that began in 2013.

Lachlan plays with a number of popular Aussie gamers – LazarBeam, Muselk, and Fresh are a few examples that might be familiar. As of 2021, Lachlan is estimated to earn anywhere between $200,000 and $3 million USD on a yearly basis – from YouTube alone. When you consider Twitch donations, brand deals and more, Lachlan easily falls into the category of top earners in Australian gaming.

LoserFruit

LoserFruit (Kathleen Belsten) is a gaming personality who has made some impressive achievements throughout her career – for example, she is the second most followed female gamer on Twitch with 2.1 million followers, only behind Pokimane.

On top of her main YouTube channel, which has almost 3 million subscribers, she has second and third channels which are dedicated to vlogging and even more gaming content. LoserFruit has been putting out content since 2013, and her popularity is only set to increase as female gamers continue to rise in popularity and gaming further enters the mainstream.

Fresh

The final top earning gamer on this 2020 list is Fresh (Harley Campbell), who is smashing the competition at just 18 years of age. On top of content on YouTube and Twitch, Fresh is a competitive Fortnite player – this is where Fresh rose to popularity, thanks to his strong performances within the Oceanic competitive Fortnite scene.

When it comes to competitive esports, Fresh is a member of Luminosity Gaming, and previously was part of Team Renegade. He first got involved in competitive gaming at the age of 16 – after dropping out of high school to pursue a career as an electrician, he instead decided to pursue a career in esports.

When it comes to Fresh as an internet personality, his popularity can be attributed to his likeable personality, his skillful performances, and some help from Lachlan and other fellow gamers. While his recent rise to fame means that estimating his yearly earnings is tough, it is safe to say that he is in a range similar to LazarBeam, Lachlan, LoserFruit, Muselk and others in the Aussie gaming community.