D&D 5E Twitch Breach and huge data dump with some purporting CR earned $9 million over three years

[darjr]

And boardgames. And the books that they've published (Tal'dorei Campaign Guide, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, their next Tal'dorei book).

Suffice it to say, they're making a lot of money off of Critical Role.

Certainly there are other revenue sources, possibly lucrative. But we can only guess. Although I’d guess your maybe right.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

And boardgames. And the books that they've published (Tal'dorei Campaign Guide, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, their next Tal'dorei book).

Suffice it to say, they're making a lot of money off of Critical Role.

I'm sure they make a fair amount of money from CR. But 31 employees is a lot of folks. I believe the players all still work their main VA jobs, so it's not like this revenue is enough to retire on.

 

[Mecheon]

Damn, Ed Greenwood should get on twitch or better yet YouTube live screaming as twitch sucks as an app.

Youtube's pretty awful for discovering new livestreams, which is why Twitch is still slightly ahead of that for folks wanting to stream

Youtube's got the superior player especially now they have clips, but its easier to be discovered on Twitch. Until Youtube does something about that, Twitch'll be just ahead in the eyes of streamers

 

[TheSword]

It should be taken down. Why host these images here at ENWorld?

Im all for a right of privacy however, the streamers who’s details are leaked make money from public donations and advertising revenues funded by their viewers. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to know how much they are getting paid for that.

When you find out someone is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars for that show you love maybe that would cause a person to consider whether the size of extra donations is appropriate.

If we found out how much a film star was paid for a movie, we wouldn’t call it sleazy. These are very public figures making a hell of a lot of money from their viewers. I’d say that the story is in the public interest, and as it’s been picked up by all the major papers in the Uk, I’d say it’s hard to argue it’s not news.

 

[Abstruse]

Even if the numbers are accurate (there are still questions about that), it represents revenue from three sources and three sources only: Bits, Subs, and Ad revenue. We also don't know if that's what the streamer actually gets or if it's before Amazon/Twitch take their share - streamers get $0.01 per bit but Amazon charges a 25-40% fee to purchase them, ad revenue is based on a CPM (I believe it's $0.05 per 1000 views), and Amazon takes 50% of subscription money for Affiliates and between 30-50% for partners (a streamer has to negotiate to get the 60/40 or 70/30 split).

And even if those numbers are accurate, they're still only one part of total revenue. It would not count licensing deals like the one with WizKids for the Critical Role miniatures, merchandising for the t-shirts and other CR merch, royalties/licensing revenue from the Tal'dorei sourcebooks, crowdfunding for the various projects like the Amazon animated series, sponsorship deals with Dwarven Forge and Carolina Tables and any of the other companies, revenue from Darrington Press their game publishing arm, etc. It also would not include expenses the company incurs like studio rental, salaries for staff, payment to freelancers/contractors, bills for things like power and internet, tax obligations, printing and shipping of games for Darrington Press, etc.

So basically even if the numbers are accurate and even if they're for revenue and not some other number associated with the account and even if they're representative of actual revenue, we still have no idea how much Critical Role actually makes. Nor of any other streamer on the list.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I'm honestly not clear on the reason people care about this. I would like to be educated. If Critical Role make $X how does that affect you/us/the industry/life and society in general?

 

[Iry]

I'm honestly not clear on the reason people care about this. I would like to be educated. If Critical Role make $X how does that affect you/us/the industry/life and society in general?

Makes me feel good knowing they are doing okay.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm honestly not clear on the reason people care about this. I would like to be educated. If Critical Role make $X how does that affect you/us/the industry/life and society in general?

shrug

Why do people care about the box office of films? Or athlete’s salaries? Or why Bob is making such a racket in his garage every night?

The same reason they play bards. Because people suck.

…and because they’re nosy.

 

[Umbran]

It should be taken down. Why host these images here at ENWorld?

Mod Note:
No, you didn't do anything wrong - this is Mod Voice to make it clear, and hold off further argument on the point.

After some discussion, it was noted that these images are pretty much everywhere gamers are on the web already. Taking them down would be performative, and not actually stop anyone from seeing them. At this point it is a choice between covering them as news, or removing them as a gesture without much impact, and the choice was made to cover the news of the day.

Please feel free to drop a line to Morrus if you feel it is important, but we won't have argument about it in-thread.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Good on them! I'm kind of happy they are in the #1 spot, because I know they literally started from scratch and worked their way up the hard way, and they are still really decent folk. I doubt 9m even goes as far as it seems, since it's split across 3 years, they have a whole team of people to pay, insure, etc. And they don't seem like the kind of people to skimp on pay or benefits (within reason).

Yeah at most they’re getting about 70k each per year, from what I read earlier. Which is solid, especially as one income stream.