Former Fortnite pro Chap accuses Twitch of taking away his income

Ryan ‘Chap’ Chaplo, a retired pro Fortnite player, has accused streaming platform Twitch of strategically taking away his income. For a period of three months, Twitch disabled advertisements, and accused him of fraud through his Twitter account, according to Chap.

In a Twitlonger, Chap revealed that he felt the need to go public because Twitch hadn’t been upfront with him. He has also appealed his case. 

Chap was a member of Team Liquid and Cloud9 – two of the biggest esports organizations in the world – before calling it a day to focus on a streaming career. Chap’s channel kicked off with over a million followers, but this intrusion from Twitch has cost him.

Not the first time that Twitch has been unclear with its punishments

For followers of Twitch streamers, some of this will not come as a surprise; Twitch does have a dodgy history of not revealing the full details of some of the sanctions that it places on streamers. Someone as popular as Chap can use platforms like Twitch to generate income, and he’s also revealed that the streams are his primary source of income.

Twitch has had troubles with some popular streamers in the past and taken decisive action against them, but Chap doesn’t seem to fit the bill. He hasn’t really gotten involved in any sort of controversy over the years, which is why this has been a bit of a surprise.

One option that Chap could take is moving to YouTube, as so many streamers before him have. But it seems like he’s going to fight for his case before making that decision. There’s nothing stopping him from moving to YouTube right now, but it might take a while for him to get the subscribers to generate the income.

Twitch might not be the go-to streaming platform for long if this continues

Twitch, on the other hand, has got to be careful. The streaming platform is getting a reputation for unclear punishments, and potential streamers might avoid the platform altogether if they see incidents like this going forward.

Twitch is just as dependent on these popular streamers as the streamers are on the platform. Twitch isn’t without rivals, and YouTube remains a popular website. Twitch has carved an identity through streaming, and to lose that to YouTube would be quite damning.