With more and more Twitch streamers switching to Kick full-time to take advantage of its greater degree of freedom and financial incentives, Kick, a relatively new streaming service, is posing a major threat to Twitch.
Kick was founded by unhappy streamers, thus it should come as no surprise that the site already has several major creators who formerly belonged to Twitch.
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1. Trainwreckstv
Trainwreckstv, a well-known but contentious streamer who started out on the Twitch platform as early as 2015, is one of the biggest stars to switch from Twitch to Kick. Trainwrecks endured a difficult relationship with Twitch over the years, being subjected to several bans for various offenses until being the focus of a major controversy involving in-game gambling in 2021.
Trainwrecks was furious when Twitch sought to outlaw on-stream gambling in October 2022 since they had a very profitable sponsorship contract with the cryptocurrency gambling provider Stake.com. Shortly later, the streamer switched to Kick, a platform with strong financial links to Stake.com.
One of the biggest stars to make this platform transfer initially was Trainwrecks, who has now become one of Kick's key advocates for convincing other Twitch streams to do the same.
2. Adin Ross
Another well-known person who recently switched from Twitch to Kick is Adin Ross. Since 2020, Ross has been subject to a total of eight bans, making him just as problematic as Trainwreckstv.
In a highly unusual decision, Twitch permanently barred Adin Ross in February 2023 because it deemed the streamer too contentious to allow him to remain on the platform.
Ross switched to Kick soon after his Twitch ban since Kick takes pride in having more lenient terms of service than more known sites like Twitch and YouTube. Ross participated in gambling sponsorships as Trainwrecks did, which provided more background for his choice to join Kick.
3. Ac7ionMan
Although less well-known than individuals like Adin Ross and Trainwreckstv, Ac7ionMan was a well-known Twitch streamer who later switched to Kick. Although Ac7ionMan has around 700,000 Twitch followers, he also decided to use Kick because of its advantages.
Ac7ionMan is another streamer who, after coming to Kick, dabbled in gambling streams despite being recognized as a variety broadcaster. The streamer, who is becoming a more prominent presence on the still-evolving site, has also spoken out in favor of the improved income share that Kick provides to producers.
4. Buddha
One of the key players in the GTA RP streaming community is the streamer known as Buddha who had over 800,000 followers on Twitch, briefly switched to Kick, and had enormous success earlier this year.
Despite this, it looks like Buddha was forced to return to Twitch soon after making this shift because of his financial responsibilities to companies like TSM, which are connected to Twitch.
Many followers of Buddha believe that the broadcaster would go back to Kick after his legal requirements are completed because he has now completely returned to Twitch. Given Kick's relative youth, the number of well-known Twitch broadcasters it has already drawn is astounding, and the list is only certain to expand as the site gains more traction.
