One of Twitch’s most prominent streamers announced on Friday (June 16) that he would be joining Kick, a competitor streaming platform, in a major blow to the Amazon-owned site and a sign of its increasingly strained relationship with content creators.
Félix Lengyel, also known as xQc online, is signing a two-year, approximately $70 million contract, with incentives that could increase the total to approximately $100 million, according to his agent, Ryan Morrison.
Mr. Lengyel’s deal, comparable in size to the two-year contract extension signed by LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers last year, could upend the economics of the online entertainment industry.
Mr. Morrison said –
“This is more than most professional athletes and megastars.”
“This is one of the highest deals in entertainment, period.”
Mr. Lengyel, age 27, interacts with fans, hosts reality television programs, and streams himself playing video games. With nearly 12 million followers and the ability to attract tens of thousands of viewers at any given moment, he has become a live-streaming superstar. Several metrics indicate that he is the most popular Twitch streamer.
Mr. Lengyel said in a statement –
“Kick is allowing me to try and do things I haven’t been able to before.”
“I’m extremely excited to take this opportunity and maximize it into new creative and fresh ideas over coming years.”
Top live stream personalities can earn millions of dollars and build loyal fanbases by broadcasting their content, but a number of them have departed Twitch in recent years, attracted by lucrative deals on other platforms such as YouTube. Moreover, some streamers have complained that Twitch has become less receptive to its online community and more concerned with maximizing profits than with streamer satisfaction.
These concerns came to a head last autumn when Twitch announced it would take a larger portion of the revenue earned by top streamers from paying subscribers to their channels. This week, Twitch reversed a recent policy change that restricted the types of advertisements broadcasters could display during broadcasts.
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Kick, a streaming platform backed by online gaming and gambling sites in Australia, such as Easygo Gaming and Stake.com, an online casino, was introduced this year and emphasizes its streamer-friendly policies. It extracts only 5 percent of streamers’ earnings from subscriptions, as opposed to Twitch’s 50 percent. According to Ed Craven, chief executive of the company, Kick is ready to run at a loss as a startup.
Mr. Craven stated that Mr. Lengyel will be expected to predominantly produce content for Kick, but he will not have an exclusive contract with the site and may occasionally appear on YouTube or TikTok. Mr. Lengyel intends to continue streaming on Twitch, though not nearly as frequently as he did prior to signing the contract with Kick.
Twitch’s seven million monthly streamers and 31 million daily viewers exceed Kick’s average of 110,000 live streams per day. However, it has expanded rapidly and attracted other talents.
Mr. Craven said –
“This is about creating something which is really centered around the creator itself and forming a community that is really built around them and not just solely around a corporate structure.”
“We don’t feel like we really have a right to dip into your pockets and take a split of that.”
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