Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, one of Twitch’s highest-profile streamers, has begun streaming on Twitch rival Kick. Siragusa announced the shift on her Twitter account last Sunday, barely two days after fellow streamer xQc announced he would begin streaming on Kick after inking a $100 million, non-exclusive deal with the platform.
In the announcement video she posted to Twitter, Siragusa is seen reading a New York Times report on xQc’s absolutely unbelievable deal before getting on the phone to her agent and obtaining one for herself, but I suspect this has been in the works for just a tad longer than the day and a bit between that article going up and Siragusa announcing her own move. Over on her personal Twitter, Siragusa laid out what she perceives as Twitch’s main “sin,” undermining its own business and riling streamers like her and xQc.
“Twitch’s ‘sin’ isn’t trying to squeeze creators. Their sin is making a business model that doesn’t succeed except maybe at YouTube scale,” wrote Siragusa, “but live streaming is a much smaller [Total Addressable Market] than pre-recorded video.” She continued to say that, instead of figuring out ways to tie Twitch into Amazon’s rapidly growing business, “Twitch decided to squeeze streamers even tho they will never be able to achieve profitability that way”.
“Grow [Total Addressable Market] or create a MUCH better biz model/monetization engine,” Siragusa implored Twitch, “Taking incremental share of streamer earnings is ham fisted, and you can’t cut your way to profitability that way.”
“I echo the view that if all the recent Twitch actions are sacrificial lambs to delay prime sub removal…. Look out below”.
Unlike xQc’s deal, the precise terms of the agreement that Siragusa has signed with Kick aren’t public yet. It’s not clear if she got a payout quite as enormous as the $100 million that xQc got (though her Twitter announcement video would suggest it was at least comparable), nor is it known if she’s permitted to stream on platforms other than Kick, as xQc is.
I’ve reached out to Siragusa about the terms of her deal with Kick, and I’ll update this piece if I hear back.
What we do know, though, is that Kick’s revenue split is far more generous to streamers than Twitch’s 50/50 (sometimes 70/30) cut. Siragusa will be taking home 95% of what she makes on her Kick streams, a split that she and other streamers likely hope will compensate for Kick’s smaller audience size (as a rough comparison, on Twitch Amouranth has 6.4 million followers, versus 65,000 on Kick).
Questions remain about the long-term viability of Kick and the ethics surrounding it. It was co-founded by crypto-casino mogul Ed Craven, who serves as Kick’s CEO, and plays fast and loose with gambling streams even after Twitch restricted them. Still, with a 95/5 split and a far more permissive attitude towards its streamers, it’s no surprise so many of Twitch’s biggest stars are willing to give it a shot.