A few decades ago, no one would think broadcasting video games could be a viable career. Nowadays, Twitch esports streaming is the main form of entertainment for millions of viewers all over the globe. Countless brands and personalities are working hard to create the best viewing experience possible, but even among them, some stand out from the crowd.
When you talk about the top esports streamers, it’s impossible to focus on a single game. Even so, Fortnite has recently risen to the forefront of Twitch, so it makes sense that its biggest broadcaster Tyler “Ninja” Blevins towers above the competition. Naturally, Ninja is a skilled gamer, but his main forte is creating friendly and enjoyable broadcasts for his fans.
In a similar fashion, Jaryd “Summit1g” Lazard made a name for himself as a laid-back, but high-level Counter-Strike: Global Offensive streamer before switching to other games. Michael “shroud” Grzesiek is also notable for his CS: GO background. That said, he did start out as a pro player, so his streams put a stronger emphasis on mechanical skill and game mastery. The same thing happened to Michael “Imaqtpie” Santana, a professional League of Legends player that decided he preferred the joy of streaming to the thrill of competition.
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Of course, esports streaming isn’t always about being the best gamer possible. Some Twitch broadcasters captivate viewers with their unrivaled ability to entertain the masses. Among these influencers, Tyler “Tyler1” Steinkamp stands out for bringing a sense of intense energy to his League of Legends broadcasts.
Meanwhile, Saqib “LIRIK” Zahid finds himself the opposite end of the spectrum. He’s witty, easy-going, and always willing to interact with other players, which is a huge reason behind his rise to prominence. And then there’s Guy “Dr DisRespect” Beahm who adopted a completely different persona to turn video game broadcasting into a wildly entertaining performance act.
It’s worth noting that not every top Twitch channel revolves around entertaining personalities. Some of them gain popularity for hosting and producing exciting tournaments and video game competitions. For instance, the Riot Games channel is the perfect place to watch professional League of Legends matches for events like the NA LCS, EU LCS, MSI, Worlds, and Rift Rivals. ESL_CSGO and ELEAGUE_TV specialize in organizing and streaming high-level Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments.
PlayOverwatch acts as the official source for high-level Overwatch gameplay, and you can use it to catch premier competitions like the Overwatch League (OWL) and Overwatch World Cup. Finally, Dota2TI is the main channel for the largest Dota 2 tournament, The International.
Famous Twitch streamer Robert “Roflgator” Malecki has accused fellow streamer Filian of getting him banned from the Twitch Rivals event this December. “That’s some scummy sh*t? 100% Filian?” a chat read, to which Rolfgator answered, “Oh, it’s Filian-related for sure. I would be surprised if it wasn’t.” The streamer said he could not join the […]
100 Thieves co-owner Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag threw a tantrum in a recent stream after Call of Duty: Warzone 2 crashed despite him playing on a state-of-the-art PC. Warzone 2 was released on November 16 and received positive reviews from fans. However, like other Activision games, Warzone 2 has been plagued with multiple bugs and server […]
YouTuber and Twitch streamer Clay “Dream,” best known for his Minecraft content, made his first public appearance at TwitchCon 2022 in San Diego, where he met his fans and other well-known streaming personalities in person. The 23-year-old has been active online since 2014 but only gained significant popularity in 2019 and 2020. His main YouTube […]
Streamer and Minecraft gaming sensation Clay “Dream” has revealed his face to his closest friends, including Minecraft creators and those not affiliated with the game. Creators invited for the exclusive FaceTime were blown away by what the masked gamer looked like and shared their reactions on Twitter. On September 23, Dream teased his fans that […]
Asmongold, a popular Twitch content creator, has criticized Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal after a player who spent $100,000 on the game can no longer find a match in PVP. It is not the first time Asmongold criticized the game (or the publisher), but he’s hardly the only one denouncing the egregious monetization of the supposedly F2P […]
For the first time since 2019, the live streaming and video gaming convention TwitchCon recently returned this year on July 16-17 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The event was attended by some of the platform’s popular streamers, such as Imane “Pokimane” Anys, Thomas “TommyInnit” Simons, as well as Ruben “Rubius” Gundersen. TwitchCon Amsterdam was a trending topic […]
Tyler “Ninja” of Twitch and Jimmy “MrBeast” of YouTube went head to head to win a $150,000 League of Legends duel on July 9. First announced to the public on June 22, the tournament ended with MrBeast conquering Ninja and winning the grand prize. The MrBeast vs Ninja LoL tournament event was live-streamed on the […]
After four years of retirement from the competitive esports scene, former CS:GO pro Michael “shroud” Grzesiek announced on Friday last week that he will be playing for the Los Angeles-based Sentinels’ VALORANT division. The announcement from shroud and Sentinels was shocking to many since the player initially had shown zero interest in making his return […]
YouTube star Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson and Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevin have announced that they will engage in a best-of-three League of Legends wager match against each other in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 9. The two internet personalities will build a team for a chance to win $150,000. MrBeast announced the event on Wednesday, […]
Red Bull Gaming member and Twitch streamer Timmy “iiTzTimmy” An recently criticized the YouTube channel Think Before You Sleep for posting clips of himself that were taken out of contex. In a social media thread, he emphasized that he disagreed with what Think Before You Sleep said in the video. As part of his year-long […]
Popular streamer Ludwig Ahgren has criticized the Youtube platform, claiming it “sucks” for streaming and needed several technical updates for it to compete with Twitch. Ludwig is a prominent streamer. He has been maintaining his strong reputation on YouTube Gaming since moving there from Twitch in November 2021. While the streamer was given a new […]
Streamer Dr Disrespect, aka Herschel Beahm, has slammed Youtube Gaming in his recent tweet. According to him, the “phony industry” that he works in does not support the content creator. Doc said on Twitter that he had already “unfollowed” YouTube Gaming due to the lack of recognition given to streamers on the platform. Dr Disrespect […]
Former Virtus.pro professional DOTA 2 player Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko has been disqualified from the DOTA Pro Circuit Playoff game despite a victory over Mind Games after drawing a symbol of the pro-Russian military movement. His action also led to the team’s disqualification from the tournament and his contract termination from Virtus.pro. In the middle of […]
Twitch streamer and internet personality Félix Lengyel, better known as xQc, has been accused of racism by a number of Spanish live streamers during the Rust classic Twitch Rivals event on April 14. The Spanish streamers said they were disrespected by their North American counterparts, including xQc. After being locked in a massive and heated […]
Following a video of him hurling inappropriate slurs at a female colleague, popular YouTube streamer Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins has been permanently banned from Valorant and other Riot games. Other than that, Twitch banned him in 2021 for making sexist statements on Adin Ross’s stream. So, he’s no stranger to controversy. What happened to the IShowSpeed […]
Twitch streamer and cosplayer Emily Schunk better known for her online persona Emiru has caught the attention of the internet and fans of Riot Games’ online battle arena title, League of Legends after the streamer called Riot’s developer to file complaints related to her character being put down easily by another champion in the middle […]
Twitch streamer Asmongold has explained why he might be “done” with Blizzards’s MMO, World of Warcraft. Asmongold built his popularity initially around the game. He has now, however, extended his reach to other games, including Final Fantasy 14 and Lost Ark. Despite the fact that he has said to his followership multiple times that he […]
Popular Twitch chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura has been banned on Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform has yet to confirm the reason for the ban. The Grandmaster, however, speculated that he was banned from the purple platform for watching Dr Disrespect on stream. Nakamura’s Twitch handle, GMHikaru, was given a three-day suspension. The five-time United States champion […]
Ludwig Anders Ahgren has won the Streamer of the Year Awards. The 26-year-old streamer won against Sykunno, who has 4 million followers on social media; xQc, with 5.5 million followers; and Mizkif, with 1.8 million followers. Ludwig himself has a following of 3.1 million on his social media handles. His triumph in the award sparked […]
Twitch players will soon see a new “Play on Luna” button emerge as Amazon fulfills a promise made a couple of years ago. In a recent video, Streamer Vet Cloud Gaming revealed the “Play on Luna” service. After integrating their Twitch and Amazon accounts, players may search for a game on Twitch and hit […]
Most pro players don’t have enough time to build up an esports streaming channel. Still, every rule has its exceptions. For example, Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi fostered a massive Twitch following while being a full-time League of Legends competitor. Brandon “Seagull” Larned also combines playing in the Overwatch League with a successful streaming career. But the biggest outlier is the Hearthstone scene where pro players like Thijs “Thijs” Molendijk, Aleksandr “Kolento” Malsh routinely juggle Twitch broadcasting and competitive play.
Playing games is definitely fun, but the reason popular Twitch streamers are so active has more to do with the money they make off it. Twitch is the main platform used by these savvy players and social media celebrities to stream their games and for a good reason. A streamer makes a living through subscriptions and these monthly contributions start at $4.99 and can go all the way up to $24.99. A regular subscriber receives half of that amount, but celebrities enjoy better terms and up to 60% of each subscription.
The numbers can be misleading, because the prospect of getting just $2.5 per subscription doesn’t look like much before we put things into perspective. The best-known and most popular Twitch streamers have developed a cult following and they have millions of Twitch followers. Even if they only convert a fraction of them into subscribers, they can make a living exclusively on the money made off streaming games. This provides more people with the impetus of streaming games and in turn, increases the number of people following these super star twitch streamers.
Esports betting is already a worldwide phenomenon, with traditional bookmakers having entire sections dedicated to video games. Some of the new operators go a step further and focus exclusively on esports betting, but Unikrn just took things to the next level. The online betting platform channels all its energy and resources on Twitch streamers, while promoting an original way of betting on streamers.
The success of popular Twitch streamers and the huge amounts spent by the cohorts of Twitch followers caught the eye of opportunists. This is how the Twitch View bots came into existence and for several years, the streaming platform waged war against them. The company recently won a lawsuit and the wrongdoers are supposed to pay compensation while taking their bots off the network. The threat is still out there and the prospect of making easy money continues to exercise a certain allure.
Apparently, even some of the most popular Twitch streamers have used such bots in the past to boost their viewership. Others chose to use them in a more damaging way, by harassing other streamers and getting their channels suspended. For law-abiding gamers from all over the world, the streaming platform continues to act as a magnet, while it serves as a springboard to success for the most talented streamers.
Final Thoughts on Esports Streamers
We may have gone over a lot of broadcasters and channels, but this is just the tip of the streaming iceberg. Twitch is a huge platform with thousands of streamers competing for viewer attention. And as long as you’re interested in esports, there’s a good chance you’ll find a stream to your liking.
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