Drops are on the way: Kick deepens relationships with developers

If you want to rock some cool items while playing your favorite video game, but you don’t want to actually play the game to unlock those cosmetics, Kick has a proposal for you: Watch your favorite streamers, and you can earn in-game rewards just by tuning in.

That’s the gist of Kick Drops, an on-platform function expected to launch on November 13. Drops rewards users who watch streams of particular games for a certain amount of time. The first game to offer Drops to Kick denizens is Rust, a survival game with a strong following on Steam. Beginning on the 13th, Rust‘s audience of Kick viewers will have access to exclusive skins and items, including the Kick–themed Hazmat suit pictured above.

Streaming mega-star xQc helped Kick announce Drops by dressing in the green Hazmat suit during an introductory event at the DreamHack Atlanta convention. “Drops marks a pivotal step in bridging gameplay and livestreaming on Kick — fueling a more interactive, rewarding, and connected experience for creators, brands, and audiences,” said Kick Head of Operations Ryan Webb. “This Rust drop is just the beginning.”

Kick isn’t the first platform setting up this type of system. On Twitch, viewers have been claiming Drops

for more than a decade, and Discord has gotten in on the fun with its Quests. So in one sense, Kick is playing the copycat with its latest announcement.

Here’s a more generous assessment: Kick is expanding the scope of its business partners. It has already signed up big-name streamers while simultaneously helping smaller channels grow. Its activity at industry events — especially the semi-annual DreamHack series — has been considerable.

Now Kick is showing that it has something to offer developers, too. The platform worked with Rust dev Facepunch Studios to bring its first Drops campaign to life, and in a press release, the company noted that publishers can benefit from a “highly effective channel for launching new content, driving sales, and encouraging long-term player retention by distributing rare digital assets.”

Kick Drops figures to be a win-win-win, so long as the titular platform can keep its new feature under control. Twitch’s Drops system has been abused in the past, so if Kick is going to avoid that issue, it needs to make sure it has its growing community under control.