A video game streamer has broken the record for the highest amount of paid subscribers on the platform Twitch, after broadcasting live for 31 days.
Ludwig Ahgren, who goes by the name Ludwig, broke the previous record, set by Ninja (real name Tyler Blevins) in 2018, by passing 269,154 Twitch subscribers on Tuesday – a number that continues to climb.
He began streaming on 14 March as part of a “sub-athon”, which saw him extend his stream by 10 seconds with every new subscriber he amassed.
There are three levels of subscriptions available for fans to support streamers, starting at $4.99 (£3.62) to $24.99 (£18.11).
Before he finished, in a final flourish he vowed to donate the cash from the final day’s subscriptions to charity, along with a percentage of the earlier subscriptions.
Reports suggest that the US streamer raised more than $1million (£725,000) for charity.
Finally ending his stream on Tuesday night, Ludwig told fans: “I can’t know any of you – 200,000 people on my stream right now – but somehow you guys as a collective made me really happy.”
Over the course of the entire stream, fans watched almost all aspects of his life, including him sleeping in a bed shaped like a red racing car – which he smashed with a sledgehammer at the end of his stream.
After seeing his record broken, Ninja tweeted: “Records are meant to be broken, I would be lying if I said wasn’t a little sad but congrats @LudwigAhgren on holding the new sub record on twitch.”
The streaming platform, which is owned by Amazon, is used largely by video game players, and enables them to broadcast themselves playing games live online.
Last week, chat show host Jimmy Fallon joined up with streamers and members of the Stranger Things cast to play Among Us, a whodunnit multiplayer game, on Twitch – underlining the platform’s surging popularity.