The Twitch streamer Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo (26) has come up with a creative idea to start a Subathon. He turns the concept of marathon streaming upside down: The more money viewers donate, the harder it becomes for him to complete his challenge of playing through 10 Nintendo classics. But at the moment, it looks like the streamer is breezing through the games in the “Super Mario” series.
This is the current situation on Twitch: The streamer Ludwig started a “Subathon” on Twitch more than a week ago: The stream began with a countdown of 30 minutes: When the countdown ends, the stream is over. However, every donation and subscription extends the stream by a few seconds. So Twitch users can force him to stay on air. Since then, Ludwig has been sleeping, showering, and eating on Twitch. His life has become like the “Truman Show”
This idea turned out to be a huge success. Ludwig has been on air for over 320 hours and has made more than $475,000. He is even banning viewers who donate too much.
This invites other streamers to imitate and adapt Ludwig’s concept.
If he doesn’t play through 10 games, he bets $75,000 in the casino and donates the money
This is Mizkif’s idea: The variety streamer and Mario expert Mizkif modestly calls himself the “gaming god.” He turns Ludwig’s idea on its head:
- His clock starts with 10 days
- But every donation decreases the timer by 12 seconds
- Mizkif has to play through a total of 9 games from the “Mario” series and Legend of Zelda – The Wind Waker in 10 days. If he fails to do so, he will go to a casino, bet $75,000 on “Red,” and donate the winnings, should he win, for “something.”
- Once he completes a game, the timer increases by 6 hours.
This is the appeal: The idea of the stream is that it gets more difficult the more popular the stream becomes and the more people donate.
The clever Mizkif is likely to profit from the event. Because even if he loses the bet, the revenue from donations and the growth of his channel will surely pay off in the long run.
Even for a gaming god, Mario has its challenges:
The streamer apparently miscalculated the details – Too much time, too few donations
So far the stream is going for Mizkif: The stream is going well or poorly for Mizkif, depending on how you look at it. Donations are coming in, but not nearly enough to put Mizkif in real trouble. He seems to have set the rules of the stream too much in his favor: This prevents any real tension.
The streamer has already completed 4 out of 10 games and still has more than 8 days left on the timer.
For Super Mario Bros., he took 7 hours and 30 minutes, while he spent 11 hours and 30 minutes on Super Mario World.
Mizkif apparently knows the games almost by heart and is progressing very well, even though he sometimes fails.
Because the timer increases again after a victory, the “countdown” feeling is completely missing. Mizkif wanted to hide this by adjusting the timer:
- The timer was initially set to a format that displayed 223:24:38 hours
- but after completing the first game, it was adjusted to 09:13:22:08 – that’s over 229 hours of time.
At the moment, it doesn’t seem like he is in any danger. To increase the appeal of the stream, he has already changed the rules: a donation should push the timer back by 15 seconds. But somehow, with so much time on the countdown, there seems to be no real thrill in donating “against” the Twitch streamer.
Mizkif’s viewer numbers on Twitch have increased by 20% in the last 3 days despite everything. The event character of the format seems to bring some variety.
Mizkif is among the people on Twitch who are firmly rooted in the community and consistently draw attention:
Streamer sleeps 5 hours live on Twitch, earns €5000 doing so
