Facebook Gaming joins streamer recruitment battle, snaps up Disguised Toast
Facebook’s live-streaming service for video game content, Facebook Gaming, has recruited “Hearthstone” and “Teamfight Tactics” player Jeremy Wang.
Better known by his online handle Disguised Toast, Wang said that he was given a $20,000 (over P1 million) budget to make an announcement video, but decided to donate it to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital instead.
Article continues after this advertisementSimilarly, audience donations for his first month aboard Facebook Gaming will be going the same way.
His move away from Amazon’s well-established Twitch TV follows those by a number of other popular streamers, but is the first high-profile coup by Facebook Gaming.
In October, Michael Grzesiek (shroud) followed Twitch’s biggest streamer, Tyler Blevins (Ninja) in joining Microsoft platform Mixer. Blevins had announced an exclusivity deal in August.
Article continues after this advertisementJack Dunlop (CouRage) also left Twitch but as part of an exclusivity deal with Google’s YouTube.
Blevins, Grzesiek and Dunlop all specialized in first-person action games over the course of their time on Twitch, with Ninja and CouRage best associated with “Fortnite”, shroud with “Apex Legends”.
In contrast, Wang is known for his preference for digital card game “Hearthstone” and subsequently a “League of Legends” spin-off “Teamfight Tactics”, part of an emerging and fast-growing Autochess or Auto Battler genre which combines elements from digital card games and multiplayer online battle arenas like “League of Legends” and “Dota 2”.
Facebook Gaming launched in March 2019. RGA
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