Reckful: World Of Warcraft’s Star Dies at 31

Byron Bernstein aka ‘Reckful’

Byron Bernstein, better known by his online alias Reckful, was an Israeli-American Twitch streamer and former professional Esports player. In June 2018, he began releasing a podcast called Tea Time with Byron, which features long-form interviews with notable guests in the gaming and streaming communities.

Career Achievements

In World of Warcraft, he finished rank one online for six seasons in succession. He was the first person to reach 3000 in-game rating and won Major League Gaming’s World of Warcraft tournament in 2010.

In 2011, Bernstein released the gaming movie Reckful 3. It reached one million views within a week (as of November 2018, the video has over five million views). He later won the WarcraftMovies top skilled contest, in which players cast their vote for player of the year. In 2012, he became a developer, operations manager, and concept designer at Feenix, a gaming mouse company. He created his YouTube channel in October 2012 and followed in November with his first video, “Reckful 5 stack Taste for Blood”.

In 2017, Bernstein was ranked fourth in The Gazette Review‘s list of top ten richest streamers. He claimed to have a net worth of $1.5 million and was receiving up to 50,000 viewers per stream.

LAN achievements

World of Warcraft

• 3rd Place MLG Dallas 2009
• 2nd Place MLG Orlando 2009
• 2nd Place MLG Columbus 2010
• 1st Place MLG Washington DC 2010

Hearthstone

• 3rd–4th Place 2013 Innkeeper’s Invitational

Sudden death

Respect has been paid to video games streamer Byron Bernstein, known as Reckful, who died on July 2nd. Mr. Bernstein was a well-known and loved e-sports player and had 960,000 followers on streaming site Twitch. Bernstein had built his following in part by playing World Of Warcraft.

His brother Gary Bernstein confirmed that Reckful had committed suicide at the age of 31.

When his death was reported on Thursday evening, fans held virtual memorials inside the game.

Before his death, he had been working to create his own video game, called Everland.

In January, he shared a video on YouTube in which he talked about his own struggle with depression and said he had lost one of his brothers to suicide.

“Byron was someone who talked about his struggles to help make room for others to the same,” Twitch said in a statement.

“As we process this loss, we have to recognise that the stigma around mental health and treatment often prevents people from seeking and getting the help they need.”

His former partner, a gamer known as Becca, said – in a blog post – that Reckful was “amazing”.

“We need better support for those with mental needs. I remember Byron telling me how traumatized he was when he had the authorities called on him for being at risk of suicide,” she jotted.

“Anyone that knew him knew how much it scared and affected him. This can’t be how people feel about the places that should be keeping them safe.”

Twitch said Reckful was a “streaming pioneer” and that it was “devastated” to hear of his death.

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