Twitch Gets Greedy

Author

Troy Fields
May 03, 2022

Welcome to Lootbox - a weekly newsletter covering the business side of video games.

What's in this Lootbox?

  • 📺 Twitch Gets Greedy

  • ⛳ 100 Thieves Goes Golfing

  • 🎮 Esports is BACK

  • 📢 Call of Duty Causes Confusion

📺Twitch Gets Greedy 🤑

Live-streaming on Twitch is one of the biggest ways video game content creators make money. Last week Bloomberg reported Twitch is considering several changes to its partner program and monetization structure.

The current proposal includes changing the revenue split from 70% to 50%. This means creators make 20% less and Amazon makes 20% more.

The leaked changes got a lot of push back on twitter from some of the top streamers in the industry:

Also included in the proposed changes are no exclusivity contracts for the top partners. There's still plenty of time for Twitch to pivot and address the community feedback, but it's clear Amazon wants more $ from their video game streaming platform.

⛳ 100 Thieves Goes Golfing

That's not The Master's logo in that picture... its a blatant rip off for the gaming entertainment, esports, and apparel brand 100 Thieves.

Not familiar with 100 Thieves? They own several Esports teams, manage top content creators, and most importantly... they sell merch. Lots and lots of merch.

100 Thieves was started in 2017 by a former pro Call of Duty Esports athlete (is athlete the right term for pro Esports competitors?) Matthew Haag (@Nadeshot).

The brand has perfected the merch "drop" template with this latest drop titled the "100 Thieves Country Club Collection". Hopefully their lawyers understand IP law and got approval from the "a tradition unlike any other" squad.

How much does a gaming brand make? December 2021 100 Thieves raised a $60M Series C round at a $460 million valuation.

🎮 Esports is BACK

Esports is officially BACK with in-person LAN tournaments. No more awkward internet connections and regional server limitations.

This past weekend we saw some major tournaments with some big $ prizes.

ALGS - Apex Legends Global Series

Apex Legends hosted their ALGS Ranked Split 2 tournament in Sweden with a total prize pool of $1,000,000. The 1st place winners took home $250K. Congrats to team Reignite on clutching the win. 100 Thieves had a team playing in the tournament but came in 16th place taking home just $9,000. Guess they spent too much time on merch photoshoots instead of practicing.

This is just the 2nd playoff split of the season. The final championship tournament is scheduled for July 7-10.

HCS - Halo Championship Series

The HCS Kansas City Major also took place this past weekend with a total prize pool of $250K with the 1st place team taking home $100K. From an ROI perspective it pays more to play Apex Legends

What the tournament lacked in prize money they made up for in viewer experience with an in-person live audience which made it look more hype than the isolated ALGS LAN tournament.

📢 Call of Duty Causes Confusion

Last week Call of Duty officially announced its 2022 flagship titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, not to be confused with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Confused? Its simple, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was launched in 2009 while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will be released in 2022 and its technically the 5th CoD installment in the Modern Warfare series.

Call of Duty is owned by Activition Blizzard ($ATVI) which is being acquired by Microsoft ($MSFT) for $69 Billion. Let’s hope Microsoft can help them with their naming conventions. Activition Blizzard owns a lot more IP than just the CoD franchise, but its fun that CoD and Halo are technically owned by the same company now (or soon will be).

Job Board

Looking for a job in Gaming? Each week I spend a few hours looking through open roles at different studios and list anything interesting I see for readers.

This week’s theme is 100 Thieves. They currently have around 10 open roles on their website. Here are a few interesting ones.

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Thanks for Reading :)

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