As the second-most followed Twitch streamer, it’s not often that Michael ‘shroud‘ Grzesiek takes a long break from streaming, but his WoW Classic addiction has got the better of him, as revealed by his girlfriend Hannah ‘Bnans’ Kennedy.
WoW Classic launched on August 26, and while it isn’t shroud’s typical stream game, he jumped right in without hesitation, even saying he would continue to stream the game regardless of a hit to his sub and view count.
His viewership has indeed taken a slight knock, with his latest stream, on September 2, only peaking at 20,000, with an average of 17,000, down considerably from his 25,000+ average for other games, according to data from TwitchMetrics.
Despite this, it hasn’t put him off playing the game, as it’s notoriously addictive gameplay has had him hooked – so hooked in fact, that he’s played it endlessly off stream too.
Shroud hasn’t been live since September 2, taking the 3rd and 4th off, and fans were left in the dark as to why, but his girlfriend and fellow streamer Bnans has exposed the true extent of his WoW addiction to the world.
On September 4, she posted “Mike has been playing wow classic off stream for over 12 hours.”
mike has been playing wow classic off stream for over 12 hours pic.twitter.com/j0ypTGu9F5
— Hannah Kennedy (@Bnans) September 4, 2019
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When shroud has streamed WoW, the broadcasts often last upwards of 10 hours, so a 12-hour session isn’t really anything new, but with no added benefit of the streaming revenue coming in, it’s clear that his dedication to Classic is getting the better of him.
Seeing Bnans’ post, Grzesiek responded by confirming he had just hit level 55 (five levels from max), and that he had played “for so long”.
I just hit 55.. I played WoW for so long.. kill me. MC TODAY THO WOOOOO https://t.co/RgUUSmdx1c
— Michael Grzesiek (@shroud) September 4, 2019
Playing WoW Classic and streaming less frequently also opened up the door for Turner ‘Tfue’ Tenney to overtake shroud as the number one streamer, following Ninja’s departure from the platform to join Mixer.
Tfue would have overtaken shroud at some point regardless, as he was gaining followers faster throughout 2019, and shroud doesn’t appear too bothered by his drop in the rankings. When he discovered that German streamer MontanaBlack had overtaken him in subscribers, he simply responded: “Oh, cool.”