Kick prematurely announced the transition of Hikaru Nakamura from Twitch, one of the popular chess streamers. Only that the streamer was not signed for exclusive broadcasts.
Twitch some time ago allowed streamers to broadcast on other platforms as well, not just on TTV. Perhaps the platform did not anticipate that Kick would actually become another competitor, but the Hikaru situation shows a rather dangerous phenomenon for TTV.
Mixer, Facebook Gaming, Youtube, and many other platforms did not manage to harm or threaten Twitch. However, all of these services offered a very zero-sum transition. You could stream either on Mixer or on Twitch.
It’s different with Kick
Hikaru will appear on Kick. From the announcement that Kick made, it appeared that the streamer was moving on permanently:
We are familiar with this scenario from the past and other platforms. Here, however, it is different. In what respect? It turns out that Hikaru will not only stream on Klick but also on Twitch.
This opens up “new opportunities” for streamers, who can now go to Kick, take the cash for it, and at the same time not worry about popularity. After all, there is always the option of starting a stream on Twitch and reminding people of your existence. Of course, you lose a lot of benefits, but it’s something for something.