While Twitch showed mixed dynamics in the first month of summer, Kick delivered a much more convincing performance. All major indicators of both viewer and streamer activity increased noticeably, with the platform recording its highest monthly watch time and Average Viewers totals of 2026.
The growth came from a combination of broader platform activity and a major Rust campaign organized in partnership with Facepunch Studios, which gave Kick both viewership and streamer engagement an additional boost.
Viewer activity records the strongest growth
Kick’s audience metrics posted particularly strong gains in June, increasing by between 18% and 24% compared with May. Streamer activity grew at a more moderate pace, with the main indicators rising by 3% to 7%, but the overall trend remained clearly positive.
The only metric to decline was the total number of streamed categories. Even there, the decrease amounted to less than 1%, with the platform covering only a couple dozen fewer categories than in May. At this scale, the change was marginal and did not alter the broader picture of growth.
Rust drives major gains across gaming genres
Among Kick’s ten leading gaming genres by watch time, every category grew except Strategy, which declined by 17%.
The strongest increases came from genres associated with Rust. RPG content grew by 77%, while MMO watch time jumped by 211% month over month.
A similar pattern appeared in the ranking of individual games and content categories. Most of Kick’s top ten categories attracted more attention than in May. The only exceptions were League of Legends, which lost 20% of its watch time, and EA Sports FC 26, which declined by 4%. League of Legends also recorded a comparable downturn on Twitch during the month.
Several categories posted especially sharp gains. Minecraft increased its watch time by 119%, while Old School RuneScape entered the top ten after growing by 403%. IRL content also performed well, with its monthly watch time rising by 43%.
Rust stood far above the rest. Its watch time surged by 949%, allowing the game to enter Kick’s five most-watched categories of the month.
The main driver was an extensive streamer campaign with viewer Drops, which brought large audiences to the category and significantly expanded its presence on the platform. More details are available in our Rust Kick Off 2 recap.
Kick’s top streamer rankings require caution
The situation becomes more complicated when looking at individual creators. Assessing the organic performance of Kick streamers is becoming increasingly difficult because of suspected viewbotting, particularly among some of the platform’s largest channels.
Jordanian streamer Hani “Absi” Al-Qablan finished the month far ahead of everyone else while running a prolonged streaming marathon. His results, however, show a highly unusual pattern: the peak audience of many broadcasts repeatedly stops at exactly 52,518 live viewers.
The fact that the same maximum appears across multiple streams makes the channel’s audience data difficult to treat as fully organic. It does not by itself constitute definitive proof, but it is a strong enough anomaly that Absi’s performance should be interpreted with caution.
The same applies more broadly to Kick’s leading streamer rankings. Raw watch time and average audience figures do not always provide a clean picture of actual demand, especially when channel-level data contains patterns of this kind.
Outside Absi, several less familiar creators appeared among Kick’s leading channels in June.
American streamer and influencer boxer Nurideen “DeenTheGreat” Shabazz is best known for his appearances in crossover boxing, including Misfits Boxing events. His main project in June was the Crash Out Boyz Marathon, held together with boxer Adrien Broner. The broadcast ran almost continuously and appears to have attracted substantial interest throughout the month.
Brazilian creator Luan “Jon Vlogs” Kovarik also entered the leading group. He initially became known for lifestyle vlogs about his life in the United States, but his main June project was Copathon, a round-the-clock IRL marathon tied to the FIFA World Cup.
Jon Vlogs and his team traveled across the United States in a motorhome equipped for continuous broadcasting while following Brazil’s national team. The format combined travel, football-related content and day-to-day IRL streaming over an extended period.
Roshtein also returned to the top ranking after a long absence. One of Kick’s best-known gambling streamers, he once again generated enough watch time to place among the platform’s leading creators.
Latin American creators lead Kick’s female streamer ranking
Kick’s ranking of female streamers also looked very different from Twitch.
While American creators dominate Twitch by Average Viewers, Kick’s leading female channels were largely represented by streamers from Latin America, including Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico and other countries.
Colombian lifestyle influencer Katy Cardona ranked first by Average Viewers. She recently expanded into IRL streaming on Kick after appearing on La Mansión VIP, bringing an existing social media audience to the platform.
Overall, June became one of Kick’s strongest months of 2026. Viewer and streamer activity both increased, most major content categories gained watch time, and the Rust campaign had a visible effect on the platform’s gaming ecosystem. At the same time, irregular audience patterns among some leading channels continue to make creator-level comparisons less reliable than the broader platform metrics.
