SophmoreJohn, a great friend of mine and of the entire community, has officially left Twitch and can now be found exclusively on his new home, Rumble.
The Late Show With sophmorejohn is his exclusive Rumble show and is essentially a continuation of his streams on Twitch, only on the new platform.
John has been slowly making the transition to Rumble-only streaming. Over the past couple of months, you could find him on Rumble some nights and Twitch others.
Ultimately, his decision to move fully to Rumble was because of the ethical dilemma of free speech which Twitch is so entrenched in one particular side of.
“I feel like I can say the things that I want to and have an enlightened conversation and I want the people that come to my streams to feel like they can be the same and do the same within reason of course.”
Twitch, as much love as there is in communities on the platform, is notoriously censorious when it comes to social, political, and religious issues. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear stated bluntly several years ago that Twitch is “very explicitly not a free speech platform.”
“One of the biggest factors [of why I left Twitch] was the freedom to speak [and] being able to talk about whatever I want without worry of a reprimand or cancellation from a corporation that didn’t agree with my beliefs. That’s not just religious belief but moral and ethical.”
Although I have never personally had an issue with Twitch, Twitch does have an atmosphere of self-censorship. You always know that all of the work you’ve put into building up a channel could be taken away if you say something Twitch doesn’t like. This is what John is fighting by ditching the platform for the more free-speech oriented Rumble.
Since making the decision to stream games like Until Dawn and The Last of Us on Rumble, John has in some ways seen more success than he ever did on Twitch. Not only is he getting more total views than before, but his streams average more viewers at a time as well.
“My streams on Rumble also get far more views than my best streams on twitch. Just the last week alone my streams have averaged around 150 views a stream,” he celebrates. “Even on my best nights on twitch I never got that many. I’ve also been featured on the front page of Rumble organically and not once have I ever been able to crack the front page on twitch because there’s so many people streaming on that platform it’s very easy to get lost.”
Rumble also includes a build-in Patreon style service called Locals where users can pay a monthly fee to access exclusive content. John is posting content you can only see on Locals in his group “I Punk’d My Guts Out”.
“Another reason I left,” John continues, “was because I feel like Rumble actually wants to be a competitor not only to YouTube but also to twitch and they are more than willing to listen to not only the content creators but also the users and work on making changes quickly and positively.”
John also notes that the payout system for Rumble is far superior to YouTube. “From a monetary standpoint the threshold to make money on Rumble is as easy as your videos getting views. You don’t have to have a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours viewed in a specific amount of time, you just have to create good content. Also the payout rate is much better on Rumble and on locals than it is on twitch or YouTube or Patreon.”
About the Author
Phillip Schneider is a Twitch Affiliate, gamer, and writer with a particular love for retro games of the 80’s, 90’s, and 2000’s. Favorite game ever? Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon.
This article (SophmoreJohn is Leaving Twitch to Stream Exclusively on Rumble) originally appeared at Phillip Schneider and may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author credit, and this copyright statement.
