The Kick streamer CodyRiffs has recently accused the platform of using viewbots. A response from the platform’s Co-Owner Eddie Craven followed, denying that Kick viewbots its own creators in order to generate more (fake) viewers.
Kick has been around for a few months now and has made no secret of the fact that they want to become as big as Twitch or YouTube, but with better pay for their streamers. While Kick has struggled to build much hype with co-owner Trainwrecks, there is always the question of whether the platform will really be successful.
After all, there have always been competitors to Twitch, such as Mixer, a platform that also tried to outrank Twitch. However, it didn’t end well for Mixer and the site was shut down.
Does Kick use viewbots on its own streamers?
When it comes to signing streamers, Kick appears to have the great advantage of leaving streamers with significantly more money than Twitch, but it’s not without issues and controversies.
In addition to discussions about the site’s moderation and the fact that creators have taken their names and given them to bigger creators, Kick has now been accused of artificially inflating its viewership with viewbots.
Specifically, CodyRiffs’ tweet went viral, saying that they went live with 40 viewers but no one in the chat even said or typed a word. Suspicious?
Does @KickStreaming viewbot…its own streamers?
I was in the top 10 of the Music category streaming a countdown clock with no music… to 40 people who weren't talking 🤔 pic.twitter.com/38ZopWz0C0
— CodyRiffs (@CodyRiffs) April 7, 2023
Eddie Craven then followed with an explanation, claiming that “Kick had over 58 million visitors in March alone, compared to 3 million registered accounts.”
With Kick still being a new platform, plenty of its viewers have not yet created their accounts, according to Craven. In other words, a lot of Kick viewers spectate the streams without logging in and therefore can’t use the chat feature.
That said, this isn’t the only case of suspicion regarding inflating Kick’s viewership numbers.
I appreciate the constructive feedback in the video. We’re working on all points you addressed already 🙂
Kick, according to well respected sites such as similarweb, had over 58m visitors in March alone. Compared to “only” 3m registered accounts. Majority of our traffic is still…
— Eddie (@StakeEddie) April 9, 2023
Will Kick outpace Twitch?
While Ninja stays optimistic, he also says that Kick creators are facing a “reality check” because a lot of subscriptions are being given away at the moment, but that will change eventually.
Still, a lot of streamers are reporting significantly higher earnings than they did on Twitch and have even shared screenshots of their earnings.
Been looking at this constantly. Every single streamer posting the revenue 99% of subs are gifted. It does a great job showing the possibility of how much can be made but it’s incredibly unstable. Lots of reality checks about to happen.
— Ninja (@Ninja) April 3, 2023
For now, we’ll have to wait and see how the platform develops, but for now, many content creators are very excited and it could well be that Kick becomes a real competitor to Twitch, which could lead to a large migration from the platform.
Header: Kick
