Big Twitch data leak — surprising top earner revealed

An anonymous hacker or hacking group has leaked Twitch source code and content creator payout information, according to a Video Games Chronicle (VGC) report.

The top five streamers on the platform earned an average of $6,864,181 (R103,747,428) between August 2019 and October 2021 — working out to approximately R4,150,000 a month.

The highest-earning content creator is Critical Role, a channel focused on the tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons. It earned $9,626,712.16 (R145,501,208.13) during the 25-month period.

This is surprising, as Critical Role is not among the most-watched channels nor is it listed among the channels with the most followers, highest peak viewers, or highest average viewers.

According to a Eurogamer report, the figures leaked are comprised of ad revenue and user subscriptions, which form only a part of a streamers’ total earnings.

The payout information shared in the leak excludes earnings from donations, YouTube, sponsorships, and merchandise.

The hacker shared a link to a 128GB torrent file on 4chan today, indicating that the leak was intended to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space” as they believe the community is a “toxic cesspool”.

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

— KnowSomething (@KnowS0mething) October 6, 2021

VGC has confirmed that the files are publicly available on 4chan and received confirmation from an unnamed company source that the leaked information is legitimate.

According to the source, Twitch is aware of the breach and believes it may have occurred as recently as Monday as the leak contains source code from this week.

This is seemingly only part of the information the hacker acquired, with the leak being labelled as “part one”.

Jarno Niemela, Principal Researcher at F-Secure, cautioned Twitch users to ensure that their information is safe.

“This leak is very serious for Twitch, but the question is what effects this will have for regular Twitch users,” he said.

“From what we currently know, is that as password hashes have leaked, all users should obviously change their passwords, and use 2FA if they are not doing so already.”

The Amazon-owned streaming service has been battling hate and harassment on its platform recently, with several content creators taking a day off in August to protest Twitch’s lack of action.

Total payouts and average monthly earnings between September 2019 and October 2021 are summarised below for the top ten highest-earning Twitch streamers.