Popular streamer and YouTube personality Rabia “Nightblue3” Yazbek recently announced that he was officially quitting League of Legends. Citing the game just isn’t as enjoyable as it used to be, he’s decided it’s time for a change.
In a series of tweets last week, he broke the news by saying, “Hey guys I've been thinking about this for awhile and I've come to the conclusion that I just don't get the same satisfaction from playing/streaming League anymore. I'm officially announcing I quit League. I've been playing the same game for 8 years and I feel now it's time to change things up.I'm so grateful for all of your guys support up until now. And thank you to those who plan on sticking around, the future is bright!”
Nightblue3 has been playing LoL since 2000, a year after the game’s initial release. He first reached Challenger in Season 3 and was picked up by Team SoloMid during the early days of eSports. Known for his trendsetting catch phrases and taste in music, he reached 1 million followers on Twitch in 2015.
Since making the decision to leave League of Legends, Nightblue has made the switch over to streaming Fortnite Battle Royale. The free-to-play game is currently the most streamed and most watched game on Twitch, consistently beating out PUBG, League of Legends and CS: GO. Even before leaving League entirely, he was already dabbling in Fortnite and quickly earned his first Victory Royale.
League of Legends fans have been wondering if Nightblue’s departure is a sign that the game could be in trouble. “I feel like people are going to use this as a cornerstone for evidence that the game is going downhill, but I think NB3 is more just burnt out,” a League player wrote on the game’s official message boards. “It is basically his job to play league where as the rest of us go home from our jobs to play league.”
According to statistics from SocialBlade, Nightblue3 did lose a handful of followers upon making his announcement. However, he’s also been gaining new viewers and his Twitch numbers are continuing to rise. Currently, he has over 2 million followers and more than 188 million views on his streams. He can be found streaming every morning with new content added to YouTube daily as well.
Whether or night Nightblue3 can truly stay away from League remains to be seen. So far, he seems content with the decision and optimistic about his future in streaming, telling his fans, “I know it's a totally different type of content so we're going to have grind from the bottom all over again but I'm super excited for it.”
