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Usually on Twitch, the rallying cry “Let’s get in the top five, baby!” ”Refers to a video game ranking. Now, in the wake of a cataclysmic data leak, the gaming world is focused on a new leaderboard – one that ranks streamers based on how much money they make with Twitch.
A circus of controversy swept the internet on Wednesday after an anonymous 4chan user disclosed 125 GB of data from the streaming platform, which included payment information for more than 10,000 Twitch streamers. Twitch confirmed the breach later today, claiming that a server configuration change allowed a “malicious third party” to gain access to the data. The revenue data, which covered subscriptions, donations, and ads between August 2019 and October 2021, immediately went viral on 4chan, Twitter, Reddit and other social media. (Several streamers said the information is mostly accurate, although Twitch payments aren’t their only source of revenue.) And while streamers are understandably concerned about the potential privacy risks associated with the data breach, many also talked about making money and, as always, making money on memes.
“NUMBA 6 BEGS FOR PRIMES,” top streamer Ludwig Ahgren titled his livestream yesterday, referring to Twitch’s Prime subscriptions. Twenty-four thousand viewers connected. Browsing through a website that organized payment information into a leaderboard, Ahgren typed in the usernames of various streamers to find what they did. (The website has since been shut down.) At one point, Ahgren called up another streamer, Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo, to continue the gossip party. “Number six!” Rinaudo shouted in a greeting to Ahgren. “You have to scroll down to see my number. It’s embarassing.”
“I would never want to hide how much I earn, so I’m ready to make a meme out of it,” Ahgren told WIRED. “I’ve had a meme for a while: more numbers, a better person. It’s kind of what it feels like to be a content creator, directly correlating your worth as a human to your height, how much money you make. (Ludwig confirmed he made around $ 3.3 million from Twitch subscriptions, bits, and ads between late 2019 and October 2021.)
All day yesterday, streamers and their fans referred to their favorite gaming celebrities by their numbers in the now defunct Twitch revenue chart. On the popular Twitch gossip subreddit r / LivestreamFail, posts pile up with headlines like “# 6 speaks to # 23”, “# 137’s worst nightmare” or even “# 6, # 188, # 264, # 280, # 269, # 343, # 414, # 550, # 1049 and # 1905 team up to beat # 28.
Part of the impetus for the meme simply came from the gargantuan payouts from the streamers. According to leaked data, the top 81 streamers have each earned over $ 1 million through Twitch since late 2019. The top five have earned over $ 5 million each. While the financial news was explosive, it’s not news that some streamers are making millions. In fact, sophisticated viewers might be able to roughly calculate the income information for some streamers on their own, no leaking is required. Most streamer subscriptions with partner status cost $ 5 and Twitch takes 50% of that revenue. So, if a partner streamer has 50 subscribers paying $ 5 per month, that streamer will earn $ 125 per month from subscriptions alone. On top of that, streamers will earn money through donations from Bit (of which Twitch scoops 30%) and ads from partner programs (of which Twitch scours 20-30%), according to Alex Curry, influencer marketing strategist. games at Upfluence.
“This leak highlights just how lucrative streaming can be, and we’re only talking about direct revenue from Twitch itself (subscriptions + ads + bits),” says Curry. That’s not a complete picture of streamers’ earnings, however. “To those numbers, you can add brand collaborations, sponsorships, merchandising and donations. So the reality of top streamer salaries is significantly higher than that. The real mystery, at least for the public, is how much money streamers are making from these private deals. And those numbers, which weren’t included in the hacker’s data dump, can be huge. In a spreadsheet yesterday, Ahgren shared that between the end of 2019 and October 2021, he earned $ 3,000,000, or 44% of his income, from sponsors.
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