Kick is a new competitor to the Twitch streaming platform. But some streamers suspect that things are not right on the new site. So did the musician CodyRiffs, who dared to try kick and came out with mixed feelings.
What is Kick about? Kick is a new platform looking to compete with the venerable Twitch. The site relies on two arguments in particular: a 95% share of the subscription income for the streamers and loose guidelines.
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But even if Kick has a dubious reputation in the eyes of some, the platform is also interesting for streamers who have nothing to do with gambling. The musician CodyRiff now dared to try it on himself – and suddenly belonged to the 10 largest streamers in his category, although he did nothing.
Kick is also a tempting option for streamers like DrDisrespect who got banned from Twitch and had to switch to YouTube without a lucrative contract:
DrDisrespect was a celebrity on Twitch – His ban remains a big secret to this day
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To be too good to be true?
Why did CodyRiffs go to Kick? Although the streamer, who has just over 3,000 followers on YouTube and Twitch, had some skepticism about the new platform – it probably said it was too good to be true – he still decided to check it out for himself.
Above all, his category, music, is still a largely unpopulated area on Kick with many 24/7 radio streams.
What was CodyRiffs’ experience on Kick? In a video in which the streamer draws his conclusions, he is positively surprised. The picture and sound were better on Kick than on Twitch, and the sub-split is of course great – even if CodyRiffs says that the money for it comes from gambling shops.
On the other hand, he negatively evaluates the lack of tools for interaction between streamers and viewers and for moderation. He also evaluates the fact that he was able to play copyright-protected music in his stream without any problems: Because this does not protect streamers from copyright strikes, which could sometimes become more expensive.
You can watch the whole video here:
Kick viewers seem to like countdowns
Was there any other criticism? However, CodyRiffs noticed one point in particular: The streamer suspected that the number of viewers on Kick was being artificially increased, so-called view botting. German content creators such as Tanzban and Staiy have already made this observation.
What made the streamer suspicious? CodyRiffs’ first kick stream seemed fine, with some of his Twitch followers in attendance, as well as a few new viewers. Overall a positive experience.
He became suspicious when he started a second stream, which only showed a 5-hour countdown – with no music or context. Because although he didn’t actually deliver any significant content, the streamer was shown 40 viewers, none of whom were active in the chat.
The fact that this stream of all things catapulted him into the top 10 of the music category on Kick probably didn’t help either.
Cody Riffs shared his observations on Twitter, where 360,000 people have already seen the post. In the attached video clip, the streamer says: “I was impressed with my viewership on Kick. I was less impressed when I realized that it’s worth nothing.”
Kick founder explains what is supposedly really behind it
Is there another explanation? Ed “StakeEddie” Craven, co-founder of Stake and Kick, saw the CodyRiffs video and tweeted to the streamer: They are already working on the criticisms raised.
Craven also had an explanation for the supposedly distorted viewer numbers: Of the allegedly 58 million viewers on Kick, only 3 million have been registered so far, so many viewers could not actively participate in the chat.
Since there are still very few active streamers, a new stream like in this case in the music category would of course attract clicks. Craven also promised a new analytics tool that will soon give streamers more insight into their content data.
What was actually behind the countdown? With that, CodyRiffs was just counting down the time he had to be on air to get a subscribe button from Kick. In the end, there was only an announcement that he would now be streaming on Twitch.
Although he sees potential in the new streaming alternative, he first has to protect his brand, which is not yet possible with Kick in its current state. Others have fewer concerns:
Former Twitch Streamers Brag About How Insane Money They Make From Kick – But Ninja Warns: “There Will Be A Lot Of Rough Awakenings”