Kick Responds To Accusations

Eddie Craven, the owner of Kick and Stake, has addressed claims that the streaming service viewsbots its own creators after one broadcaster made the claim.

Kick has recently opened, and there has been constant discussion about it regarding whether it can successfully compete with livestreaming giants like Twitch and YouTube. Despite having a lot of support from creators and Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins suggesting it has more potential than Mixer because of the higher subscription income split compared to Twitch, there has been some controversy around the site.

Kick has been accused of faking its viewership numbers with viewbots in light of debates surrounding the site’s moderation and creators having their names snatched and given to bigger artists. Regarding the circumstance, a specific tweet that stated that “viewer count doesn’t mean sh*t” went viral was posted after they went live with just 40 viewers and no one participating in chat.

Soon later, Eddie Craven shed some light on the subject by describing how this might be the case. He explained; “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 unauthenticated and are yet to create accounts. It’s a new platform and people are slowly signing up every day … Subsequently, such as in your case, when you find yourself on the homepage for the music section you’ll naturally attract clicks.” 

This may explain why certain broadcasters’ chats on Kick aren’t as lively as one might anticipate, as there are still a lot of people visiting the site and watching streams even though they don’t have accounts and can’t utilize the chat feature. Naturally, nothing is sure, and this isn’t the only situation where some people think Kick’s statistics are exaggerated. 

Ninja expressed cautious optimism for the platform but added that Kick streamers should prepare for a “reality check” because many subscriptions are now given as gifts and will eventually reach a plateau. Only time will tell how the platform develops, but for now, many creators are enjoying it, and if they can maintain the momentum, Twitch may experience a decline in popularity.