The Twitch leak has shown: Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris is actually not the highest-paid German streamer on Twitch. That honor belongs to James “Altoar” van Eden. He only has 276 followers on Twitch. The app developer is now celebrating himself as “Germany’s biggest streamer” and enjoys the fact that hardly anyone knows him.
How much money do the biggest German streamers earn on Twitch? On October 6, a major Twitch leak was made public, which showed, among other things, how much money individuals received directly from Twitch from August 2019 to October 2021.
It appears that only earnings from ads, bits, and subscriptions are listed. Additional money that Twitch pays out through the “Bounty Board”, exclusive contracts, or sponsorship deals is missing from the listing.
According to the data, the highest-paid German gaming streamers are:
- MontanaBlack88 with 2.39 million US dollars
- TheRealKnossi with 2.16 million US dollars
- GRONKH with 1.48 million US dollars
- Trymacs with 1.29 million US dollars
- Papaplatte with 1.29 million US dollars
- NoWay4u_Sir with 1.19 million US dollars
This pretty much aligns with expectations: The earnings correspond to viewer hours.
German app developer receives, according to the leak, the most money from Twitch
But which German earns the most money on Twitch? However, in eighth place on the list is:
- Altoar with 3.05 million US dollars
Hardly anyone has the name “Altoar” on their radar. The Twitch account has only 276 followers and is not even verified.
Why does he earn so much money? Behind the name is James van Eden, an app developer from whom the popular Twitch extension “Sound Alerts” originates.
With the Twitch extension “Sound Alerts,” viewers can spend bits to create sounds on Twitch and play them live in the stream. A portion of this revenue goes to Altoar. The site dotesports writes: Whenever someone donates to a streamer through “Sound Alerts,” 20% of the proceeds go to Altoar.
According to the site Gamepur, Sound Alerts has now been installed by 1.7 million Twitch users.
From the WoW extension to mega success
Twitch introduced Altoar in August 2019 (via twitch). He is described as a “video producer, hobby programmer, and long-time esports fan” from Germany.
Altoar was already successful in 2017 with a Twitch extension for WoW: The extension provided viewers with accurate information about a streamer’s WoW character.
The WoW app was active on 20,000 channels at the time – Sound Alerts was Altoar’s second extension. And that one really took off.
In August 2018, Altoar celebrated the “financial success of Sound Alerts,” and back then it was said to be a “steady, growing revenue stream.”
In 2018, the app was active on 12,000 channels. Three years later, the extension has brought him over 3 million US dollars.
“Germany’s number one streamer”
Here’s how Altoar deals with his new fame: He enjoys the fact that Twitch streamers are now guessing who he actually is.
The well-known US streamer Sodapoppin, who is number 43 on the list, did not understand at all why Altoar was in eighth place according to the leak. After all, it’s a tiny channel, and not even verified.
Sodapoppin even believed there was “money laundering going on.”
Altoar, who now only calls himself “Number 8” on Twitter, is having a royal laugh over the clip. He writes:
“Can’t believe number 43 doesn’t recognize me (number 8), even though I’ve been subbing for him for 24 months. I know all my subs!”
On Twitter, Altoar now jokingly refers to himself as “Germany’s biggest streamer.”
The highest-paid female streamer on Twitch is one of only 3 women who made it into the top 100:
