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Comment by boringg | Hacker News Reader

Am I the only one a bit disappointed by the gross earnings for the top 5 earners given how much the media has ben hyping the money made by e-gamers. For some reason I would have thought they would make more money over 2 years. Top earner was grossing $ 9.6M ($4.8M/yr), 10th was $2.9M($1.4M/yr), at 81 you drop below $1M (500k/yr) on twitch pre-tax revenue. After 81 you drop below the %1M over two years threshold.

Actually the more I think about it - that does seem like a lot if you add in their other rev from youtube channels and other compensation. I understand why all the pro players started working on their twitch stream content more than winning competitions. More stable business and viewer base.

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A lot of those streamers are pretty open about how twitch revenue is a small portion of their earnings.

Ninja was famously paid $1MM for an 8 hour ad of playing Apex at launch.

I've had private conversation with large streaming friends that have all said independently that the amount they get paid from a short Raid Shadow Legends ad is huge. One said it's enough to buy a nice car, and if they hit their target downloads (w/ link) the number jumps up to enough to buy multiple nice cars.

There is a lot of big money for streamers, not just big streamers.

I saw a thread on twitter as part of this leak that showed chat of a streamer turning down around $1.6 million a month to advertise a gambling website, because another one was paying more.

I'm not surprised by any of this. If you ever did any digging in to how much advertising pays, ran numbers on twitch subs, etc, these numbers match that quite closely.

Are you kidding? 4.8M / year is stellar revenue. Much much more than most people make in a lifetime.

It's even more interesting that for 50k gross, you have to beat this guy "DEMOLITION_D" at the #4432 place.

Number 1 is Critical Roll. Their website lists 24 employees (many of whom are professional actors), and I’m sure there’s more behind the scenes. Salaries add up quickly.

I'm pretty sure that Critical Role isn't the main income for most people.

Also: 4.8M/24 people is still 200k per head. Even if you assume that various costs take 50% of the revenue, they're all still making 6 figures for a thing that's pretty much a side hustle for most of them.

Critical role is making a ton more than just Twitch revenue.

Also it started out being a side gig but most of them have switched to it as their primary gig. They are starting campaign 3 this fall.

4.8M gross - there is there is all the over head involved in running the business after overheads it will be less.

Let's say payroll is half their total costs. Payroll taxes plus income taxes works out to somewhere around 40-60% of the remaining amount. Health insurance is probably in the 10% range per year, leaving them with a $50k salary. Costs are not, of course, quite that high.

As a point of comparison, a talented voice actor can gross around $125k per year, working from home as a freelancer. I don't feel that the Critical Roll actors are being overcompensated at all.

You think an assistant is being paid same as busy TV actors? :)

The most amazing Critical Role fact might be its creation was indirectly financed by Youtube/Google :o. Felicia Day knew all of those guys and about their private DnD game, she invited them to film few episodes for her YT channel "Geek & Sundry". Channel started with $1Mil advance from YouTube Original Channel Initiative, one of the rare if brief successes.

That works out to $200k/year for each employee, which after you account for benefits is a solid middle class income, assuming they don't live in downtown San Francisco or something.

It's basically a regular job at that point.

I hate to break it to you, but 200k/yr is in the top 4% of earners in America. That's not "middle class" by any stretch of the imagination.

Actually 200k gross is "middle class" what do you think a lawyer or doctor makes in CA.

After taxes, insurance, retirement, etc... you're taking home maybe $100k of that. That's "modest home in a nicer suburb" level money.

In the bay and LA sure. Everywhere else in the country you're living large. Even NYC 200k is doing pretty well.

I don't think you've been keeping up with home prices and insurance costs around the country. $100k take home isn't all that anymore. You're not food stamp poor, but it's easy to be house poor at that income level, especially if you're shooting for a better school district. Health insurance costs eat up so much of that it is not funny, even if you are healthy. If you or someone in your family comes down with an expensive medical condition you'll be in real trouble.

True, these people are all self employed, so insurance costs would be pretty large. If you're making 200k I'd still say you've probably got at least 100 left over after taxes and insurance. That affords you a 600k house using the 30% of income rule if you can get the down payment together.

It's among the top 4% of income, that's an objective metric. Being in the top 4% of people in one of the wealthiest countries in the world is objectively not middle class.

The traditional distribution of social classes historically was something like 90%+ working+lower classes (farmers/craftsmen/factory workers/service jobs/soldiers/etc) 9% middle class (merchants, doctors, lawyers, officers, scholars, managers) and 1% or so of upper class (landlords, aristocracy and capitalists; CEOs and politicians). Middle class grew much larger in mid-20th century USA, exceeding 50% but perhaps that's just a temporary situation that's now reversing as the inequity has been significantly increasing in the last 50 years or so and it looks like in the future middle class might be a minority forever - IIRC current stats would be something like 1-2% of upper class, 45% middle class, and the remaining 53% or so working+lower classes.

If you look at social class stratification, the general assumption is that if you have to work a job for your income, you're not upper class, you're serving in the employment of the upper class. If you have a high paying job, that's defined as "upper middle" social class at least until you have accumulated wealth to transition to a capitalist/owner/investor role (as some popular musicians and athletes do); being in the top 4% of earners is quite reasonable for traditional upper middle class roles e.g. independent lawyers and doctors, which also tend to earn 200k+/year in USA.

They all live in LA actually :)

That is literally the top earner in the community made up by a team of people.

The media/VC etc community has been hyping e-gaming as the new sports domain. That said the top salary for a sports player is $168M / year for one player (Lionel Messi) and number 99 is $35M/year (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_sports_contrac...)

It really shows how much of a step change there is between the sports & e-sports and I would be curious how much of this Twitch is keeping to themselves instead of paying out.

Not to mention how much uptime e-gamers have to put in.

Note that streaming is a completely different revenue source than esports earnings. Top esports earners might not even stream at all.

Good point - I should differentiate more clearly.

Also good to note that most streamers have a side donation system that more then likely isn’t included in these numbers. Donations seem to be generally run through a non twitch third party site. And is probably a substantial increase if not a doubling of their income.

Many of these folks are paid to stay exclusively on Twitch and to not hop around to other platforms, and I don't believe that's reflected here either.

Before commenting on how much revenue this seems to be for the streamer, remember that most streamers hire and maintain staff. Preach Gaming, for example, has 6 full time staff. Angry Joe is somewhere around 8. Critical Roll’s website lists 24 employees, plus more who are likely not credited.

Paying all that talent adds up.

If you squint a bit, that's not that far off of niche pro athlete money (especially given that the bottom end doesn't have the same discrete threshold that pro sports do). Per [0] the best-paid NHL players are making ~$10M/year, and I would expect the NHL to be more efficiently monetized than internet streamers (we know that making money as "talent" on the internet is a tough proposition).

[0] https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/rankings/

Brand deals usually match or exceed their income from Twitch as well.

No donations included I believe

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