this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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After dealing with lots of bad PR from terrible decisions, Twitch now has to deal with one of its biggest streamers moving to another platform, Kick, with a deal larger than those of most athletes

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Good for him, if they can actually pay. And I thank Kick for letting me know that I have 0 interest in that platform. xQc's content isn't for as I'm an adult that isn't a complete asshat. Only partial, but xQc is far too toxic for me.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Kara A bit of history here :

Stake (a sketchy online casinos) made Kick after Twitch banned gambling using sketchy online casinos from the platform.

XQC was one of the streamer sponsored by Stake.

Xqc got mad when another streamer (Mizkif) were campaigning to get gambling banned from Twitch, so XQC try to weaponized a girl sexual allegation against Mizkif's friend in order to cancelled Mizkif.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

That is some excellent context, thanks.
I know a few streamers that have been chatting about kick. The gambling origin/backing makes it seem sketchy AF.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I will never understand the appeal of these awful little men and their screeching little chats. They're all so loud and irritating.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Little kids operate exactly like that, and that's the whole demographic for most twitch users

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s Kick, in case you didn’t want to click the link

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Can't say I've ever heard of it before but must be doing something to have $100m for this.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it’s crypto gambling stuff

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

AKA a Ponzi scheme

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Shadocvao Stake (a sketchy online casinos) made Kick after Twitch banned gambling using sketchy online casinos from the platform.

XQC was one of the streamer sponsored by Stake.

Xqc got mad when another streamer (Mizkif) were campaigning to get gambling banned from Twitch, so XQC try to weaponized a girl sexual allegation against Mizkif's friend in order to cancelled Mizkif.

@Kara @SuperSaiyanSwag

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

That sounds like an incredibly toxic situation

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's Stake's cryptogambling online casino business

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe it's just me, but something always seemed sketchy about Kick. Their ability to throw around hundreds of millions of dollars without any clear ownership smells fishy. I personally wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years there was an in depth Coffeezilla video exposing the platform.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I believe they are have been heavily invested by the owners of Stake.com the gambling platform. Pretty sure when Twitch banned gambling streams that was their cue to start or invest heavily in Kick.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I think it's gonna be a gambling cesspool. Given the investors, that's the goal of it anyway.
It's a shame mixer had such a shit user experience, that could have been a proper twitch competitor without the sketchy gambling.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This is actually good. Twitch has become just as anti-consumer as Reddit ever since Mixer shut down.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Except Kick is run by crypto gambling site Stake

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

A big similarity being Twitch and Reddit don't create the content, they rely on users of the platform. Hope this becomes a message that users can't be expendable

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Is it? Alternatives are always great but everyone is saying kick is shady.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

But Kick is pretty shady itself.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I still believe Kick will crumble to death like Mixer if it doesn't bring enough people to their crypto gambling site to make it worth it lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was mixer Microsoft's attempt at entering streaming?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, it was active from 2016-2020.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

And now that it's gone, I'm kinda sad that we lost it, because Twitch really needs the competition.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Well, good for xqc for nabbing that deal. He would be a fool not to. But $100 mil seems like a massive investment for his... 'content.' It's definitely going to attract the wrong viewers that are extremely unhealthy for the platform, severely limiting the potential for more advertisers.

The ownership of Kick.com is currently unconfirmed. However, there are signs that suggest the crypto gambling site Stake.com may be backing the project. Job listings posted by Australia-based start-up Easygo state that “Kick.com is a new venture created by the founders of Easygo and Stake.com”. Stake accounts also created and previously moderated the Kick subreddit. According to confirmation by Stake representatives, Eddie Craven, an owner of Stake, is not the owner of Kick.com, but only an investor. Trainwreck could also have a stake in the company.    

Wow, Bing's search is pretty damn good and linked sources. Anyway, this is actually so predatory of a business I don't even want to delve any deeper than I did in 10 minutes. He's going to actively push users toward these gambling websites, and we all know how destructive that addiction can be.

I think this is all for show, to be honest. The New York Times broke the story, but do they even do pieces like these? Is it possible this Stake company paid for NYT to publish the article? They even include statements from Kick and xqc. I'm not a subscriber so it's a genuine question. I think the crypto gambling people and xqc have a shady partnership going on and he's not actually receiving $100 million, but definitely is getting paid. It just seems that $100 M for one person isn't fiscally reasonable. Anyway, crypto on its own is shady and combine that with gambling? Sounds like trouble.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This seems to be a no strings attached good deal on xQc's side given the lack of exclusivity clause. Worst case scenario is a particularly bad scandal hitting the platform could tarnish xQc's reputation ~~such as it is~~ but that's a risk for literally any platform. However...

As a start-up, Kick is prepared to operate at a loss

Aaand the platform is doomed. Focusing on growth over viability is whats makes you a prime enshitification target.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reminds me of when Mixer signed Ninja over to that streaming service. Let's see if Kick sticks around.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Not that Twitch chat is a flawless representation of a streamer’s overall value, but just popping in on XQC’s channel - it’s wild how many people are actually engaged and chatting. It seems like a lot of people there are only there for X.

On the flip side I remember times going into Ninja’s (same with Shroud) where there’s 30k viewers or something nuts but the chat might be scrolling slower than a mid-sized streamer’s. Just seems like more people will actually go to Kick (less professional, more “go wild”) than in the former cases with Mixer (more corporate, professional).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Kick also replaced Stake as car sponsor for the F1 team Alfa Romeo. Judging by the prominent logos on the car, the partnership would be very expensive too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I mean yeah Twitch definitely needs competition. It's just kinda sad when the compition is even shadier than twitch lmao

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Probably a hot take but this is insane to me. I want off this fucking planet. 100 million for a streamer, what the actual fuck.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Glad Twitch has a competitor, but I've never heard of Kick. Expecting this to go as well as Mixer

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Mixer actually had something imo, it's a shame they sold it. MS had the $$ to spend.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Paywalled. Is this an exclusive contract?

Twitch needs to get its shit together.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Not exclusive, which makes this whole thing even crazier. He can even still stream on Twitch. 2 year contract worth $70m that can hit $100m with incentives. This should let you read it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It’s wild that it’s not even exclusive, that’s crazy.

I guess though is XQC is a gambler, right? So I’m guessing that he’ll have a bunch of times where he’s only on Kick then

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