The streamer Ludwig has been live on Twitch for over 200 hours. He started a so-called “Subathon” on March 14. Meanwhile, the money situation has become uncomfortable for him. That’s why he now blocks users who give away too many subscriptions.
What happened? As early as March 22, we reported on Ludwig’s Subathon on MeinMMO. He stays online 20 seconds longer for each subscription. This has now gotten out of hand:
- Ludwig has been online for more than 200 hours straight and is even filmed while sleeping.
- Estimated, he has earned about 400,000 dollars from the subscriptions.
- According to the site Twitch Tracker, he is in first place with 110,208 subscriptions and has almost twice as many subscriptions as xQc or Nickmercs in third and fourth place.
However, the money has become uncomfortable for him, especially because some users have spent an enormous amount of money. While each user can only subscribe once for themselves, there is also the option to gift subscriptions. The highest “giver” has subscribed for over 7,000 subscriptions at 5 dollars each.
Ludwig is now putting a stop to this.
Those who gift more than 100 subs will be banned
What does Ludwig say about the situation? During the stream, Ludwig commented on the donations and explained that he feels uncomfortable because of the high amounts. Therefore, he has now set a limit:
Since I cannot know where the money comes from, whether it comes from mom’s bank account or from a booming business that some guy has, it sometimes doesn’t feel appropriate.
My problem is that people are spending too much money, and that is a bit uncomfortable. I want to limit the amount of money spent, with a cap of 100 gifted subs.
To enforce this rule, Ludwig has instructed his mods to ban anyone who gifts more than 100 subs. He has also emphasized that 100 subscriptions already correspond to the value of 500 dollars.
The complete statements on the topic were collected on the YouTube channel of OTV & Friends Clips:
Restrictions also for Bits: Besides the limited number of gifted subscriptions, Ludwig also introduced a cap on Bits. Bits are a currency on Twitch that can be purchased with real money and then gifted. Streamers receive a payout equivalent to that currency.
What does that mean for the Subathon? This restriction is intended to prevent a small number of viewers from keeping the stream alive indefinitely. Whether that actually works is questionable since new accounts and possibly different payment methods can simply be created.
As of now, Ludwig still has to stream for at least 33 hours (status March 24 at 6:30 PM). Whether that number will increase or decrease due to the adjustments will be shown precisely in those hours.
How is Ludwig feeling about the situation? On one hand, he has made an incredible amount of money from the action. He also said during the stream that if he ever feels unwell, he just takes a bath in his money storage.
On the other hand, you can tell in the streams that he has become worn out by the situation. Being online continuously and being watched by the viewers is not easy.
Whether he has also set a limit on subs for this reason is unknown.
The record for the longest stream on Twitch, however, belongs to GPHustla. He has been live on Twitch for more than 5,200 hours straight and also films himself while sleeping. However, he does not have anywhere near the reach of Ludwig. His viewer numbers often only lie in the double digits.
What lies behind this story, we already reported in September 2020:
Streamer has been live for 1068 hours on Twitch because he is afraid of being alone
