XQc’s massively lucrative deal to broadcast on the streaming startup Kick is certainly set to make his wallet a little bit fatter in the coming months and years, but it hasn’t taken long for the online celebrity to garner backlash from those suggesting he’s “selling out.”
Popular Path of Exile streamer Mathil last week took aim at the Juicer’s decision to take money from Kick, even if it wasn’t to the benefit of his viewers, and the former Overwatch League pro’s clap-back was to suggest that Mathil was simply jealous.
In a new Twitch clip from a Diablo IV stream Tuesday evening, however, Mathil made it clear that not only is he not jealous, but xQc’s behavior is most certainly indicative of someone that is selling their audience out.
“If someone has no money and they get 100 mil, yeah, sure, that’s big, life-changing shit,” he said. “But if someone’s got probably 100 mil already, gets another 100 mil, what have you done? Nothing. You’ve sold your audience out for another few zeroes, and it is absolutely selling your audience out. … The whole gambling sponsorship here, the whole gambling slots thing, it’s disgusting.”
While Mathil’s comments were largely in relation to the negative impact sponsored gambling streams have on viewers, he made sure to note, in a post on reddit, that Kick’s existence is largely predicated on sponsored gambling streams, as was made evident early on through online casino Stake owner Ed Craven’s investment in the platform.
Related: XQc has been live on Twitch almost every day since joining Kick—and that’s what they want
“Promoting or being sponsored by slots is just 100 perecent siphoning money from your audience and delivering it to yourself because you’ve decided you need it more,” he said. “That’s what those previous sponsorships were about, and that’s all this new platform is about.”
In response to claims that he is “jealous,” Mathil expressed on stream that he is perfectly content with his income and doesn’t feel any desire to vie for a $100M contract. In essence, he provided an argument that followed the old cliche “money can’t buy happiness,” and in his Reddit post, he reiterated that sentiment.
“The main thing the juicers will come into my chat or hit me on twitter with is about jealousy,” Mathil wrote. “Maybe when they’re grown up they’ll realize that just because their streamer only values money and they only value money doesn’t mean that is the value system for literally everyone else on this planet. Money’s great but it only gets you so far in our gamer lifestyles and beyond a certain point you really don’t need to do scummy things to get more of it.”
XQc will likely not change the way he operates regardless, as he has previously said he intends to fix the “tarnished” brand of Kick.
