Kick, which was established as a competitor to Twitch, has recently made a name for itself by incorporating major publishers such as Adin Ross and Hikaru Nakamura. Sponsored by Tyler “Trainwreck” Niknam, the site markets itself as a creator-friendly site with many favorable policies.
The streaming space has become oversaturated, and then the number of streaming platforms that have popped up and shut down over the past few years has increased. From the rise and fall of Mixer to the streaming wars between YouTube, Facebook and Twitch, streamers have switched platforms.
A number of niche sites such as Trovo and DLive have also sprung up to try to grab some of the market share. But Kick seems to have the most stamina of any other so far, and there are loads of stellar streamers backing the platform.
Kick markets itself as a creator-friendly platform with appropriate policies to lure even the smallest publisher to give it a try. It's still in beta, but most publishers have expressed interest in trying the platform. What is Kick? Here's what you need to know about Twitch's new rival platform.
Who owns Kick.com?
Kick.com is operated by Pty Ltd and supported by Stake.com co-founders Bijan Tehrani, Ed Craven and broadcast personality Trainwreckstv.
Job postings by Australian-based start-up Easygo state that “Kick.com is a new venture created by the founders of Easygo and Stake.com.” Stakes accounts also created and previously moderated the Kick subreddit.
Stake was one of the main sponsors of Trainwreck on Twitch before it was banned on the platform.
What makes the platform attractive enough to rival Twitch?
Kick was on the rise when Tyler “Trainwreck” Niknam announced his transition to Kick to his 2.1 million followers on Twitch.
Niknam stated in his speech that he will appeal to every broadcaster regardless of platform.
Kick promises a 50-to-50 subscriber revenue split that breaks through Twitch's 70-to-30 and YouTube's 95-to-5 policies. This means that Kick publishers will transfer almost 100% of their subscription fees to their accounts without interruption. In addition to the 95% share. Creators will be able to get paid the same day without having to wait for the monthly check.
Those are pretty big numbers, but the platform is confident that it can pay the bill with money from advertisers and make a profit. Trainwreck: “Kick will partner with the world's leading advertisers to generate cash flow. I believe creating the best incentives for creators will drive the best creators to Kick, and the best creators will bring in the best advertisers.”
Can Kick survive the broadcast battles?
Kick needs to keep making deals with big names to survive. With Trainwreck's early involvement and the signing of Adin Ross, Kick seems to be maintaining its momentum. He has also signed contracts with Destiny, a veteran streamer banned from Twitch for violating the Terms of Service, and Hikaru Nakamura, the biggest Chess streamer on Twitch.
Kick promises the world to creators, but previous promises by other platforms have been disastrous. Mixer was known for his eight-figure deals to top talent like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Michael “shroud” Grzesiek, but fell out of favor in just a few years.
Trainwreck asked streamers and fans to give Kick a year to grow and enforce its policies properly.
However, it still has a long way to go before it can compete with mega-platforms. Twitch has Amazon support, YouTube has Google, and Facebook has Meta. These are some of the biggest tech companies in the world, and Kick is an incipient platform that several big publishers vouch for.
Kick's vision is specifically to support, in Trainwreck's words, “small and medium-sized content creators who are the foundation and backbone of all live streaming platforms.”
Hype ve Tolunay Ören The fact that popular Turkish publishers such as Kick have moved to this platform is an official indication that Kick is starting to gain momentum worldwide.
Still, this is a generous reading of the situation. Kick has already been embroiled in controversy, whether through its embedding of Trainwrek's Twitch streams for promotional purposes or other questionable business practices. Let's see what the coming days will show us about the future of the platform...
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