Twitch Star Signs $100 Million Deal With Rival Platform
www.nytimes.com
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The deal signed by Félix Lengyel, known as xQc, matches traditional athletes’ contracts, and is another sign of Twitch’s tense relationship with its top streamers.

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

ozoned
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222Y

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.

Ninth3891
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92Y

@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.

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.

simple
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82Y

Saved you a click: The rival platform is Kick.

Not a fan of XQC but it’s great that there’s a Twitch rival trying to get serious. $100 million dollars for just one streamer though? Sounds crazy.

0xtero
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72Y

great that there’s a Twitch rival trying to get serious

Kick is not it though.
Their mothership Stake is crypto gambling casino and it’s shady as fuck

Ah that explains why their biggest streaming category is gambling

hybrid havoc
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22Y

I would feel better about this if it weren’t for Kick’s relationship with an online casino.

onceuponaban
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5
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2Y

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.

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

_sideffect
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32Y

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

blobcat
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42Y

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

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.

Psuhke
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52Y

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.

verysoft
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12Y

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.

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.

iAmTheTot
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22Y

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.

bathrobe
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22Y

@Kara who gives a shit about any of these sociopaths?

Jitterydork
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12Y

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.

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