Mr. Lengyel, 27, chats with fans, hosts reality shows and broadcasts himself playing video games. He has become a star in the livestreaming world, with nearly 12 million followers and the ability to attract tens of thousands of viewers at a given time. By some metrics, he is the most popular Twitch streamer.
“Kick is allowing me to try and do things I haven’t been able to before,” Mr. Lengyel said in a statement. “I’m extremely excited to take this opportunity and maximize it into new creative and fresh ideas over coming years.”
Top livestream personalities can earn millions of dollars and attract communities of loyal viewers by broadcasting their content, but a number of them have left Twitch in recent years, attracted by lucrative deals from other platforms like YouTube. And some streamers have complained that Twitch has become less responsive to its online community and more focused on profitability than keeping streamers happy.
Those concerns came to a head last fall when Twitch said it would take a bigger cut of the revenue that top streamers earn from fans who pay to subscribe to their channels. Twitch altered that policy this week and rolled back a recent change restricting the kinds of advertisements that streamers could show during their broadcasts.
Kick, a streaming platform backed by online gaming and gambling sites in Australia, like Easygo Gaming and Stake.com, an online casino, was launched this year and is emphasizing its streamer-friendly policies. It takes only 5 percent of streamers’ earnings from subscriptions, compared with the 50 percent cut that Twitch takes. As a start-up, Kick is prepared to operate at a loss, said Ed Craven, the company’s chief executive.