A massive Twitch data leak earlier today revealed 125 GB of confidential information to the world. Twitch has confirmed that the breach is real and is “working with urgency to understand the extent” of the leak. The files include Twitch’s source code, along with information on an unreleased Steam-like competitor called Vapor, comment history, creator payment history, and more.
Some Twitch viewers were shocked by the leaked data, which revealed the purported top-earning streamers and their Twitch payouts. Streamer NICKMERCS is on the list, coming in fifth place as one of the highest earners on Twitch between August 2019 and October 2021.
The Call of Duty and Apex Legends streamer averages around 33,000 concurrent viewers per livestream and has 45,839 current active Twitch subscribers, according to Twitch Tracker.
Given his current subscriber count, NICKMERCS is making, at the absolute minimum, an average of $114,597 a month just from Twitch subs alone. And that’s not considering tier two and three subscribers, who pay a higher rate, nor does it include Nick’s bits, donations, or Twitch ad revenue. So Nick is making well over $1.3 million a year just from Twitch subscribers alone.
The Twitch leak claims that NICKMERCS’ total payout from August 2019 to October 2021 is just over $5 million. This means he’s making at least $2.5 million per year, not including his other sources of revenue such as YouTube, his paid deals through FaZe Clan, and merch sales. Nick also has a number of paid sponsorships with brands such as GFuel, CashApp, SeatGeek, and Under Armour, which means his annual revenue is likely much higher.
In addition, NICKMERCS announced yesterday that he’s staying with Twitch for livestreaming and not moving to YouTube in a brief announcement video. It’s likely Twitch paid him a fair amount of money to remain exclusive to the platform, so that exclusivity income would make this $2.5 million number even higher as well.