A hack of Amazon-owned Twitch revealed what some of the top-earning gamers make through the platform and Amazon’s potential plans in the gaming industry.
The leak, posted on infamous forum 4Chan, claims to include Twitch’s source code and an in-progress Amazon Games product, codenamed “Vapor,” that appears to be a gaming marketplace along the lines of Steam.
On Tuesday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that gaming could become the largest entertainment sector. Valve-owned Steam had 120 million monthly active users in 2020.
The hack, comprising 125 gigabytes of data, offers insight into how much popular streamers have made since 2019.
- Twitch’s top account, a Dungeons & Dragons streamer named “CriticalRole,” has earned $9.6 million since 2019.
- 80 accounts have grossed more than $1 million since August 2019.
Twitch itself made $2.3 billion last year, primarily through in-stream advertisements.
The hackers said that they would release more data but didn’t preview what that would include, claiming the hack was designed to “foster more disruption and competition” in online streaming and calling Twitch’s community a “disgusting, toxic cesspool.”
The platform has recently been faced with a spate of attacks from bots posting hateful messages on its chat boards.
