According to a leak, Twitch steamers xQc, and Summit1G are the highest paid creators on the platform, under Dungeons & Dragons liveplay series Critical Role. The payouts of thousands of Twitch streamers surfaced online, and although there are some people raking in millions of dollars, some of the numbers may be surprising. It’s no surprise that playing games for people online can be a lucrative business, but some of the actual raw data is still remarkable.
On October 6, 2021, Twitch had a massive leak containing confidential information including its source code, a competitor to Steam, streamer payouts, and much more. The leak is yet another substantial breach of a massive tech company. Although it hasn’t been confirmed whether or not any passwords or other information has been accessed, users are being warned to change their passwords as soon as possible just in case. The leaker reportedly released all of this information to hurt Twitch as a result of the toxicity present on the site. Twitch has been subject to a lot of criticism over the last few years due to how it handles toxicity on its platform, issues with copyrighted music or videos, and much more.
One of the biggest talking points from the leak is the payouts of various Twitch streamers from August 2019 to October 2021. Critical Role, xQc, and Summit1G are reportedly the highest-paid creators on the platform (via Sinoc229). Ludwig’s $1.4 million Twitch subathon helped earn him a sixth place on the earnings leaderboard. Ludwig noted during a recent broadcast that the number that leaked was indeed correct. While it’s unclear how accurate the numbers are for other streamers, Ludwig said he believed the other figures to be true given the accuracy of his reported income.
According to twitchearnings.com, a site that has all of the numbers ranked from highest to lowest, there are 81 streamers that have made at least $1 million in the last 2 years. 262 streamers have made over half a million. These numbers only include ad revenue and subscriptions, but not donations, sponsorships, or other forms of income that don’t go directly through Twitch. TimTheTatman also made a whopping $3.29 million in the last few years. TimTheTatman recently left Twitch after signing an exclusive deal with YouTube, which was possibly more lucrative than the money he was bringing in through Twitch.
Needless to say, Twitch streamers can make a lot of money. Thousands of creators have brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last few years through subscriptions and ad revenue alone. On top of that, a lot of these streamers also have YouTube channels where they upload stream highlights, likely inflating their income even more. As these leaked figures show, some people do make a lot of money through their streaming careers.
Sources: xQc/Twitter, Jake Sucky/Twitter, Sinoc229/Twitter, twitchearnings.com
