Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel has torched Twitch powerbrokers for their newly unveiled boosting feature, claiming the latest addition to Amazon’s streaming website is not much better than view-botting, and is “quite possibly the dumbest sh*t I’ve ever had the displeasure of putting my eyes on.”
In the past few months, Twitch has slowly been dripping out new website features, with their new invention — a stream “boosting” feature — the latest to be unveiled.
The new feature allows fans to boost a content creator’s channel discoverability via monetary donations, and so far, streamers have been less than impressed. Some have already dubbed it Twitch’s latest “pay-to-win” feature, and many are furious over the fact that real money can “let the rich get richer.”
One big name has already weighed in too: xQc hates the idea.
“This has to be the worst idea I’ve ever seen in my life,” he proclaimed. “Quite possibly the dumbest shit I have ever had the displeasure of putting my eyes on.”
The main problem, xQc continued, is that the feature is basically “view-botting,” allowing streamers to bypass the need for exciting content. Instead, a simple credit card charge fires them up the Twitch streaming ranks.
“This is legitimately view-botting,” he stated in his September 30 stream. “Twitch will say no, but it is. There are so many problems here I don’t even really know where to start.”
The star streamer soon added, “this is bad, bad.”
One biggest issue the French-Canadian explained he had with Twitch’s latest feature is how many question marks it still has. The reveal wasn’t clear where the recommendations would go or what it would look like on the other end. And, he added, “increasing popularity for cash” doesn’t sit right with him either.
“I honestly think that this hurts the website a lot more than it boosts anyone,” he claimed. “It’s kind of worrying because it’s going to hurt the whole ecosystem.”
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The crux of the matter for xQc came down to one thing; organic content. The former Overwatch League professional is no strange to building up an audience — he’s gone from averaging 80 viewers in 2016 to a mighty 9.2 million followers.
That explosive growth took half a decade, however, and only recently has the variety streamer eclipsed other superstars like Shroud, Dr Disrespect, and Ninja.
That pathway would be lost, he warns, with this new change.
“What people consume the most, not what the companies want most, what viewers want most is the organic content. People want to watch organic streams, what people make, what they can do. The problem is, if people start [boosting] they’ll bury that organic content under manufactured dogsh*t,” he said.
“Users will leave the platform if this happens, because they’re experiencing less organic content, and they have to go so far down to find it. It’s buried under all this boosted garbage. That then hurts the website, and people leave.
“Your five, ten bucks [used to boost], it’s a joke. Twitch loses more users overall through this, gets less ad revenue, and then everyone cops the loss.”
xQc wasn’t quite done with his Twitch tirade just yet either: “People will say this is a cash grab, but I don’t even agree. It’s just a dumb f**king idea. Internally they have to know that it will make them even less money.
“It’s just such a dumb idea. There’s nothing good about this. I don’t even get it,” the Twitch star continued. “The fact this idea went so far in the product chain that we have a prototype and a public statement saying that they’re going to try it is already too far. This shouldn’t have ever been revealed.
“I don’t want to be rude, [but] really whoever had this idea, I don’t know how they didn’t get laughed out of the room. This is a disaster, end of story.”
