Twitch data leak reveals producers and musicians earn a tenth of gamer’s earnings on the platform
Artists such as Disclosure are earning millions less than the likes of Summit1g, xQc and Shroud.
Credit: Andrea Vumbaca / Alamy
Streaming platform Twitch has reportedly suffered a major data breach that has revealed the alleged earnings of the most popular channels on the platform.
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According to the leaks, the top gaming and entertainment channels earned millions of dollars in revenue from August 2019 to October 2021. This is allegedly 10 times more than the average music artist made in that time. Screenrant has noted that the reported gross earnings only include ad revenue and subscriptions, but not donations, sponsorships, or other forms of income not made directly via Twitch.
Music tech analyst and journalist Cherie Hu reported on Twitter that producer and songwriter Kenny Beats earned $677k in tips and subscriptions from August 2019 to October 2021.
Kenny Beats’ purported earnings make him the highest earner among his music artist stablemates on the platform. By comparison, Cherie Hu reports that Disclosure earned $26K in the same period, while Knxwledge made $93K, and T-Pain made $185k.
some examples of artists' earnings from tips/subs on Twitch from Aug 2019 to Oct 2021:
Kenny Beats: $677K
Tee Grizzley: $209K
Logic: $193K
T-Pain: $185K
aeseaes: $166K
Insomniac: $100K
HANA: $97K
knxwledge: $93K
Mike Shinoda: $91K
Illmind: $86K
Soulja Boy: $73K
Disclosure: $26K— cheriehu.eth (@cheriehu42) October 6, 2021
According to the leak, these figures pale in comparison to gaming and entertainment channels on the platform. As revealed by KnowSomething on Twitter, the gross payout to CriticalRole, the top Twitch channel, was $9,626,712 from August 2019 to October 2021. Sitting just below is xQc at $8m, followed by Summit1g at $5m.
The gross payouts of the top 100 highest-paid Twitch streamers from August 2019 until October 2021: pic.twitter.com/3Lj9pb2aBl
— KnowSomething (@KnowS0mething) October 6, 2021
During a recent broadcast, streamer Ludwig – whose gross earnings are supposedly over $3m – said that the leaked numbers were correct. However, it’s not clear how accurate these figures are for other streamers involved in the leak. BBC News claims that three streamers came forward to confirm the accuracy of the figures.
Additionally, the leak has highlighted the disparity between streamers, with the highest-earning woman on the platform, Pokimane, reportedly ranking at 39th on the list.
The leaked data was hosted on twitchearnings.com, which is now only accessible . Screen Rant reports that it ranked the top earners from highest to lowest, with 81 streamers allegedly making at least $1million in the last two years, and 262 streamers earning over half a million.
Twitch confirmed the breach on Twitter yesterday [6 October], claiming that “[its] teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this”.
We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021
