Asmongold has been a vocal supporter of Kick and its challenge against Twitch in the streaming space, and has stated that he simply “doesn’t care” about the criticism he has faced for it, despite what he calls the “blood cost” of Kick’s ties with gambling platform Stake.
Asmongold, despite streaming exclusively on Twitch, has been a huge advocate for Kick and other streaming platforms looking to break the strong grip Twitch has on the space. This has rung especially true with Kick’s big-money offers to bring creators over from the Amazon-owned platform.
He has advised new streamers starting out to try to grow on Kick instead of Twitch, admitting that he would do the same if he was starting over, commending their more favorable revenue split for broadcasters.
That said, there has been a lot of criticism over Kick, particularly due to the fact it is connected to the crypto gambling site Stake. This is especially notable in the wake of Twitch’s divisive ban on some gambling content – which included Stake – content that Asmon previously spoke out very strongly against.
Asmongold “doesn’t care” about Kick criticism
During his January 26 stream, Asmongold responded to a comment in his chat about Kick deals being unethical, and Asmon was very clear in his response.
“Guys, I really hate to tell you this, and there might be people that are unhappy about this, but I am not bound by these rules that you create,” he said. “I just do what I feel like doing, and I never make excuses for it. I’m not going to go ahead and argue with you.
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“Of course, there is a blood cost. Absolutely. You’re not going to get me to say something and then go back on it because I don’t want to say something in a bad way or say something that’s offensive. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me.”
After one viewer compared it to child sweatshop labor, Asmon reiterated his point: “I don’t care — you can say it 50 times and it’ll be the same answer. I don’t need anybody’s approval to do what I want, so if people don’t like it … Okay, yeah. I just don’t care. Keep in mind, it’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t care enough to have it change what I’m doing.”
Another viewer said that he wouldn’t be critical of Kick in case it impacted his chances of getting a contract in the future, to which he very honestly said “yes, you’re absolutely correct.”
Regardless of the Kick situation, and Asmongold’s previous thoughts on gambling on Twitch, it’s clear he has changed his mind on the situation after assessing it overall. Whether he ends up on Kick, however, remains to be seen.