Started multi-streaming on @kick on April 1st this year. Was expecting it to be a shitshow due to their track record over the last few years. They've made significant changes and it's been a great experience so far. Not really what I expected at all so I wanted to give this write up. My three major issues with the platform were gambling connections and content, copyrighted material being incentivized, and shitty behavior going unchecked. Gambling: Kick now gives viewers the option to block all gambling channels on the platform in settings and also reduced partner pay from the Kick Partner Program down to zero when streaming gambling. Before this I would have said that Kick is a front for pushing gambling content. With these changes Just Chatting and GTA RP are now the top categories and I think the platform is headed in the right direction. Copyrighted Material: Previously Kick had a category called "TV Shows and Movies" which obviously incentivized people to stream copyrighted content. I was really vocal about how stupid this was as their distribution network is Amazon IVS. They changed the category to "Other Watch Party" which was the same problem under a different name. Now they've deleted the category entirely and started banning people for streaming copyrighted content. There are still people doing this but they actually ban them when the channels get reported even if it's a big streamer. Complete 180 from what was going on before. Moderation: When I first made my account on Kick back when it came out in 2022 it was the wild west of bullshit. Tons of streams openly breaking the law (Shoutout to the guy streaming Breaking Bad with the steps to make Meth in his profile) or just being shitheads for views. On top of this bots ran rampant hitting your channel constantly and filling every chat on the website with ads and messed up messages. Shitty behavior still exists on every platform but it seems they've been cracking down on it now. Searching through site I've found a lot of rad broadcasters and after their recent anti-botting updates my channel went from an auto-mod nightmare to just the community dorking around. It's actually -nice- on there now which was not on my 2026 bingo card. With those issues out of the way I wanted to know more about the Kick Partner Program and what features are available to streamers and sponsors. Analytics: Right now the analytics page on Kick is extremely bare bones but this is changing super rapidly. They just shipped a media-kit tool that displays all of the metrics that sponsors actually look for. ACCV, Peak CCV, Unique Viewers, Hours Watched, Chat Rate, Sub Count, Sub Gain, Stream Frequency, and Primary Age Group of your viewers. They break this down in chunks of 30, 60, and 90 days which is the standard. My hope is that they open this data up on the API to get sponsors excited about the creators there and give streamers more granular data in the planned Analytics page. I'm a stats dork so this is the most exciting feature for me. Kick Partner Program: This pays out significantly more than any other platform and I don't think it's sustainable for them long term and I will explain why below. I ran a test between Kick and Twitch in May to see the difference. Kick reduces KPP payments by 50% when you multi-stream to incentivize but not require exclusive streams. On Twitch you get revenue passively from ads and Twitch Turbo viewers and multi-streaming doesn't reduce this. Descriptions of the testing setup below and numbers after that. On Twitch I was streaming Diablo 4 which is a mature videogame and reduces ad revenue by anywhere from ~30-50%. I was running 4 minutes of ads per hour during this and ran a 12 hour stream hitting USA, Europe, and Australia across the broadcast. These are many different ad regions but this is my normal broadcasting slot. On Kick I was streaming Diablo 4 as an exclusive Kick only stream the next day after the Twitch stream. There are no ads on Kick and it is paid out entirely from the KPP based on your viewership. As this was an exclusive stream it did not carry the 50% cut a mutli-stream would have. Twitch = $0.0119 /viewer /hr Kick = $0.2371 /viewer /hr The KPP paid 19.92x the amount made from ads and Turbo on Twitch per viewer. I then did the same thing with our ferret rescue. On Twitch the ferrets run 8 minutes of ads per hour in the Animals, Aquariums, and Zoos category. This is a highly ad-friendly category and makes a ton more from ads than my primary stream as a result. The ferret stream also still runs ads for subscribers as our rescue is primarily funded by ads. Twitch = $0.072 /viewer /hr Kick = $0.123 /viewer /hr Even with all of that the Kick side of the multi-stream cleared Twitch by 70.83% revenue. It also shows that the KPP is legitimately ~50% when you multi-stream so no shenanigans are taking place. This can't be sustainable unless Kick makes significant amounts of money through partnerships and their upcoming ad programs. For now this is the best pay in the industry but I feel that it likely won't be this way forever. I started doing exclusive Kick streams every Thursday as a result of this and we're using the money to get medical equipment for our ferret rescue. So far it's bought a Veterinary Ultrasound machine which will expand our diagnostic capabilities a ton. Companies paying for animal welfare is a win in my book. Overall: Kick is going in the right direction but still has a lot of catching up to do in terms of tooling and features. Looking forward to seeing where they are by the end of the year based on how fast they are moving. It's nice to see real competition in this space when there really hasn't been for so long.

Look who’s come to visit me on my birthday, bearing gifts! I really appreciate the gesture.

If your game has a label that says “No AI was used”, I won’t buy your game. We don’t need that virtue signaling that AI is somehow bad.

After 6 incredibly long years, my Paper Mario meets Hollow Knight Metroidvania called Dewdrop Dynasty is finally coming out on July 21st, 2026. If that sounds like your cup of tea, please give it a wishlist or a share. (Wishlist link in the comments) #pixelart #gamedev #indiegame #metroidvania #ドット絵 #gametrailer