At the time of its launch in October 2022, Kick platform made quite a hype when it launched. In fact, it was intended as a response to Twitch's strict policy. And many streamers saw this as a way to be more independent. But it seems that not everything turned out to be so simple...
Yes, at first Kick did attract top streamers with big deals, such as the $100 million contract with “xQc” (Felix Lengyel). But I guess something went wrong from there.
Recently, some streamers have been saying that things aren't going well for Kick. For example, Twitch streamer and YouTuber “Mizkif” (Matthew Rinaudo) said in the latest episode of his «Just Chatting» podcast: “Right now, Twitch is dominating. Kick tried and it’s still doing stuff, but it’s not going to take over.”
Also, popular streamer “Moistcr1tikal” (Charles Christopher White Jr.) frequently shares videos of Kick streamers committing deplorable acts during streams without any consequences for the platform.
And former Kick employee Melissa generally accused the platform of a racist work environment and discrimination against streamers with autism and cancer. We can also recall the flurry of criticism due to Adin Ross, who showed porn to his predominantly young audience.
All this does not have the best effect on the image of the platform. But let's look at the numbers and data.
Today, Kick's peak viewership slightly exceeds 1.14 million, compared to over 6.64 million for Twitch. If we compare live viewers, Kick has 424,600 compared to Twitch's 2.44 million. And finally, the number of live channels: Kick has over 3,000, while Twitch has 120,500!
Whatever you say, the data suggests that Twitch still maintains a stable number of viewers, while the number of Kick viewers is gradually declining. In addition, Twitch now has more streamers using this platform.
In conclusion
We'll see what happens next. It seems unlikely that Kick will beat Twitch due to ongoing criticism, and the general audience isn't showing much interest in this new platform. This will likely lead to a decline in viewership and impact the platform's financial situation in the future…
