The massive Twitch leak has already revealed the top 100 earners on Twitch, with role-playing group Critical Role the most successful.
It hasn’t taken long for people to sift through the massive leak of Twitch data, which includes all the service’s source code and financial details of how much has been paid to streamers from August 2019 onwards.
The number one streamer is actually a group of people, with Critical Role earning the most from Twitch with $9.6 million (£7.1m) in gross revenues. Critical role involves several voice actors who play tabletop role-playing games, so nothing directly related to video games – even though many of the actors do work on games.
The top individual streamer is Canadian Félix ‘xQcOW’ Lengyel, often known simply as xQc. He pocketed $8.4 million (£6.2m) from Twitch over the last two years and is significantly ahead of Americans Jaryd ‘summit1g’ Lazar on $5.8 million (£4.3m) and Turner ‘Tfue’ Tenney on $5.2 million (£3.8m).
A list of the top 100 earners has already been compiled, which you can see in the tweets below, but it only includes money paid directly by Twitch to streamers.
That’s only one way they make money though and in many cases will have earned even more from sponsorship deals, merchandise, revenue from other services like YouTube, and external donations.
Even so, it still gives a fairly clear idea of who’s most popular and what kind of money they’re making.
Top 10 Twitch earners
- Critical Role – £7.1 million
- xQcOW – £6.2 million
- summit1g – £4.3 million
- Tfue – £3.8 million
- NICKMERCS – £3.7 million
- ludwig – £2.4 million
- TimTheTatman – £2.4 million
- Altoar – £2.2 million
- auronplay – £2.2 million
- LIRIK – £2.1 million
The figures have been compiled by Twitter user KnowSomething, who also points out that streamers can earn a million or more a month from gambling sponsorship, something which in turn implies that their viewers are spending millions of their own money on gambling.
The figures also show how Twitch is completely dominated by male streamers, with Pokimane the highest ranked female streamer at number 39, with $1.5 million (£1.1m) a year.
Here’s a more comprehensive list of leaked Twitch payouts (I will keep updating this thread as more things come out). pic.twitter.com/15JItvp6l4
— KnowSomething (@KnowS0mething) October 6, 2021
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