Artesian Builds makes custom-built PCs and livestreams daily on Twitch as they put together the rigs. During the livestreams, Artesian Builds offers discounts and PC upgrades to viewers, and gives away a free PC to Ambassadors every month. Ambassadors are affiliate content creators who refer Artesian Build PCs to their viewers and receive a percentage of every sale. To qualify as an Ambassador, applicants must meet at least one of a number of requirements, such as streaming 40 hours per month, having 50,000 TikTok followers, or 1,500 subscribers on YouTube.
Having met the minimum requirements to become an Ambassador, many people would assume that they also qualify for the monthly Ambassador giveaways. To the surprise of some recent winners, however, it seems there are arbitrary and undisclosed additional requirements to win the giveaway. This discrepancy was recently brought to light by a few small Twitch streamers who won a PC during an Artesian Builds giveaway, but then were told that they didn’t qualify because they didn’t have enough followers.
On March 1, content creator kiapiaa won a completely built PC during an Artesian Builds Twitch livestream. However, rather than congratulating her, company CEO Noah Katz allegedly altered the giveaway requirements and disparaged her numbers. “2k followers is under my threshold,” he announced on stream while reading kiapiaa’s stats. “Let’s see if you have redeeming qualities… This person has three months of ambassadorship and not a single click. Not a single click. Not even once. Purged.” Kiapiaa made a Twitter thread sharing clips of the stream, commenting, “You hear this man’s voice? He’s belittling me. It’s slander and defamation of my stream and me as a person. I won that PC fair and square.” She went on to explain that Katz’s “condescending” tone made her “feel like I’m not a good streamer.”
Soon after, other Twitch streamers shared that they had also won PCs from Artesian Builds, which they had never received either because they didn’t have large enough followings, didn’t have enough clicks on their affiliate links, or didn’t meet other PC giveaway requirements that were added at the last minute. SonicMega, rather than receiving a free PC, was told that Artesian Builds would only give him up to $500 towards the purchase of a PC from their website. StrawberryMoogle also shared a clip of an Artesian Builds stream during which she won a new PC and had her small following disparaged onscreen. Katz stated, “Only 2.4k followers. Certainly valid, certainly able to get merchandise. A valid user, able to win our other products, but not… Yeah.”
Understandably, many viewers are not happy about the seeming duplicitous nature of the Artesian Builds PC giveaways. Twitch streamer Mizkif, one of the founding members of esports organization OTK Network, announced that the group had officially cut ties with Artesian Builds, a former sponsor. “OTK is…a collective of streamers working together to elevate one another and produce content that is greater than the sum of its parts.” On a livestream, Mizkif also spoke about an Artesian Builds PC he had received. “I think it was an absolute garbage, sh*t PC. Nothing was right with it.” NICKMERCS, another Twitch streamer, stated that Katz’ language on the stream was “very, very odd and very weird… I don’t like it.”
Although Artesian Builds has since apologized multiple times for Katz’s behavior during the giveaway streams, it hasn’t stopped the blowback. Kiapiaa shared that she had since received an email from the company and been offered a new PC, which she turned down. “My email back to them was a simple two sentence reply. No ty. Take me off your ambassador list.”
Sources: Dexerto, Dot Esports, Sportskeeda
