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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[–] ozoned@beehaw.org 34 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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[–] MonsieurHedge@kbin.social 21 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.

[–] _sideffect@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Ninth3891@kbin.social 19 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.

[–] towerful@beehaw.org 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.

[–] SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Shadocvao@feddit.uk 3 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.

[–] lackthought@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it’s crypto gambling stuff

[–] aport@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

AKA a Ponzi scheme

[–] Ninth3891@kbin.social 4 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

[–] saplyng@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

That sounds like an incredibly toxic situation

[–] 0xtero@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

It's Stake's cryptogambling online casino business

[–] dope@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] blobcat@kbin.social 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

[–] bumbly@readit.buzz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was mixer Microsoft's attempt at entering streaming?

[–] lunar_parking@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, it was active from 2016-2020.

[–] Varyag@lemm.ee 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.

[–] pirategoddess@kbin.social 7 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.

[–] Psuhke@kbin.social 9 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.

[–] verysoft@kbin.social 6 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.

[–] bumbly@readit.buzz 7 points 1 year ago
[–] onceuponaban@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This seems to be a no strings attached good deal on xQc's side. 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.

[–] dart@lemmy.fmhy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

[–] NotAPenguin@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

Except Kick is run by crypto gambling site Stake

[–] Kara@kbin.social 7 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

[–] Bad_And_Wrong@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Thalyssa@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

But Kick is pretty shady itself.

[–] godless@latte.isnot.coffee 5 points 1 year ago
[–] honk@feddit.de 4 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

[–] jimmy@lemmy.one 4 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.

[–] MassiveCelebration78@kbin.social 3 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).

[–] Jitterydork@kbin.social 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.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 3 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.

[–] SilentStorms@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Paywalled. Is this an exclusive contract?

Twitch needs to get its shit together.

[–] TenGallonRat@kbin.social 5 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.

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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[–] peroleu@kbin.social 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

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[–] bathrobe@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

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

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