The Twitch and YouTube streamer Ludwig wanted to do something good for a fan of a colleague, but he was outsmarted. In the end, he donated an amount that was far too high, which he actually couldn’t afford.
Who is it about? It’s about the Twitch and YouTube streamer Ludwig Ahgren. With over 3 million followers on Twitch (via sullygnome) and over 6.5 million subscribers on YouTube, he is one of the stars in the American Twitch scene.
Ludwig is seen as an honest and gullible streamer, which is why he has often been tricked. Most recently, like many other content creators, by the company honey.
His Twitch colleague is shroud. He is often referred to as a shooting god, as he was a professional esports player in CS:GO in the past. For a good cause, he recently raffled off an hour of his time to the person who would donate the highest amount.
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“Just for the Meme”
This is the backstory: Ludwig was able to spend an hour with shroud before. Four years ago, there was a similar fundraising campaign where Ludwig donated a total of $53,000. The event made waves as it took years for that hour together to happen.
Ludwig recounts in his stream from February 11, 2025 (via YouTube) that he had seen shroud’s fundraising campaign and found it amusing to participate in the bidding. Not because he wanted to win, but just for a laugh.
He said, “Obviously, I didn’t want to win; it was just for the meme.”
Outsmarted for a Good Cause
How was Ludwig outsmarted? Initially, he only bid $10,000 and wanted to stop there. But a fan, apparently a fan of both shroud and Ludwig, asked how much he would have to donate to spend an hour with both Twitch streamers at the same time. The two set a bid of $20,000.
The auction system had a feature that caused Ludwig to be outsmarted. Bidders indicate how much they are willing to spend at most. The system saves this amount and only bids for the bidder as much as necessary to outbid the highest bidder.
This is meant so that bidders don’t have to pay their maximum amount immediately, but only as much as is actually necessary.
In order to push the amount up to $20,000, Ludwig competed with the fan in bidding. The unfortunate part: the fan eventually stopped bidding and left Ludwig at $18,099.99. Ludwig won the auction – inadvertently.
There was a happy ending: Even though Ludwig initially seemed quite downcast, the entire event had something good:
- His donation goes to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
- For the time with shroud, Ludwig considers inviting him to his gaming format “Bro vs. Bro”. Each has to come up with a certain number of games to play against each other. The better one wins.
Ludwig stated that he couldn’t actually afford such an expense of over $18,000. The reason is his financially unsuccessful year 2024: The former golden boy of Twitch has to close his company and lay off employees before Christmas
