Tectone, Asmongold see drop in viewers after apparent Twitch crackdown on viewbotting
Multiple Twitch content creators have noticed a sharp decline in their viewership immediately after Twitch has taken apparent action against viewbotting.
Many believe Twitch to have a significant viewbotting problem, which content creators use to display false numbers to increase their prominence and potentially bring in additional revenues. The platform has received much backlash from viewers and other streamers who want it to fix the problem. Twitch CEO Dan Clancy claims that it’s hard to catch these bots, and that this is why the issue persists on Twitch.
The livestreaming platform announced in late July that Twitch is updating its methods to more effectively catch viewbotting, promising to take action against streamers who abuse bots. Viewers have now noticed that prominent streamers including John “Tectone” Robertson and Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt’s have seen viewership decrease immediately after the new practices seemingly went into place, leading to discussion that they may have been engaged in viewbotting.
Tectone viewership halved, Asmongold loses thousands of viewers
Publicly accessible data shows Asmongold, Lydia “lydiaviolet” Wilson, and Tectone among those losing in viewership on August 21 after the crackdown on false viewers apparently went into place. According to this data, Tectone and Lydia had half their normal numbers, while Asmongold’s figures were also noticeably lower. There is no proof that these or other streamers have lost viewership specifically because of bots, but the timing has many raising their eyebrows.
Asmongold and Tectone were hardly alone in seeing effects from the change. Multiple top streamers are now facing significantly lower numbers of viewers, and Twitch’s overall viewership is down by a meaningful amount compared to just a week prior to the change. Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo and Nick “FaZe Lacy” Fosco were also among those who saw an immediate drop.
Nick “nmplol” Polom is among the sources making clear that Twitch’s viewbotting changes went into effect on this August date, and he’s another of the prominent streamers who might have been affected. nmplol has publicly denied that he was engaged in viewbotting.
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Current viewership stats show multiple streamers experiencing their lowest live concurrent viewership numbers in months, or even years. It’s hard to look past Twitch’s crackdown against viewbotting as the reason for the steep decrease in the number of viewers. While it’s difficult to confirm with absolute certainty that the numbers are down because of bots being stopped, that hasn’t stopped many from reaching the same conclusion as there are no other explanations readily available for why so many streamers would experience the same issue at the same time.
Streamer Félix “xQc” Lengyel spoke out on the situation, claiming that Twitch’s actions have brought both “viewbotters and victims of viewbotting” to light. He speculated that some platforms may allow viewbotting because it may increase their overall numbers just as it does the numbers of individual streamers.
The issue with that, however, is even if a platform like Twitch is able to show inflated numbers to partners and advertisers, those numbers are unlikely to translate to performative data such as click-through and conversions. This can create a potential discrepancy that would be difficult to explain to advertising partners, hurting the platform and brand in the longer term. This may be among the reasons Twitch would seek to stamp out viewbotting even at the potential expense of its own overall viewership statistics.
Khizar Mundia has been playing video games for as long as he can recall. Things have come a long way since the many days he spent playing the original NES, though. He now covers a variety of competitive games and esports, as well as the world of streaming, ranging from Twitch to Kick. If it’s of interest to gamers, it’s of interest to Khizar.
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