Twitch leak reveals streamer earnings and lack of diversity

A Twitch data leak has revealed the supposed earnings of its top streamers.

As previously reported, an anonymous hacker has published a torrent on 4chan that includes the Twitch source code and streamer payout reports.

The latter has since been extracted and shared on Twitter, including the top 100 highest-paid Twitch streamers from August 2019 until October 2021, as well as more recent monthly earnings.

It's no surprise that streamers earn a sizeable sum through the platform, but some may be surprised at just how high these numbers are.

It's also important to note these figures, which will largely be comprised of ad revenue and viewer subscriptions, are only one portion of the income streamers make. These numbers do not include direct donations during a stream, nor revenue from merchandise, YouTube revenue, or sponsorships.

The gross payouts of the top 100 highest-paid Twitch streamers from August 2019 until October 2021: pic.twitter.com/3Lj9pb2aBl

The below tweet in particular puts gambling sponsorships into perspective, with the potential for young viewers to develop gambling addictions and fall into debt in stark contrast to the millions of dollars earned by streamers.

It's worth reiterating that these totals represent just a fraction of what streamers earn. Donos, merch, youtube revenue, and sponsorships are all unaccounted for here.

Streamers can pull in over a million a month just from gambling sponsorships alone.https://t.co/jZjXbD46Af

What's more, the leak reveals a distinct lack of diversity in those top earning streamers.

Men dominate the list. In fact, of the top 20, all are men. Pokimane, at 39th on this particular list, is the highest earning woman on the platform.

The majority of those streamers are also white and don't (publicly) identify as part of the LGBT+ community.

The leak certainly highlights the disparity between those highest earning streamers at the top of the platform and marginalised streamers at the other end, harassed by hate raids and demanding Twitch do better.

And while #ADayOffTwitch did result in a million drop of concurrent viewers, had many of these top earning streamers taken part the impact could have been even more significant - financially as well as in viewership totals.

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