Escape from Tarkov‘s latest Twitch Drops campaign kicked off with a significant technical failure. The free watch-time drops went live as planned, but the paid Support-a-Streamer reward never activated at launch.
Viewers didn’t realize this immediately. Thousands rushed to gift subscriptions to major Tarkov streamers in the opening minutes, expecting to unlock the exclusive in-game cosmetic tied to the Support-a-Streamer program.
Pestily received roughly 5,000 gifted subs in approximately two minutes. Lvndmark saw about 2,000 subs in the same window. Other Tarkov streamers also experienced similar surges before anyone caught the problem.
The Support-a-Streamer system is a Twitch promotion that grants in-game rewards when viewers purchase or gift qualifying subscriptions during a campaign window. It runs separately from traditional watch-time drops and requires active coordination between Twitch and the game publisher.
Streamers and their communities quickly noticed something was wrong. The Support-a-Streamer drop wasn’t showing as active on Twitch’s Drops page. No overlays or banners confirmed the campaign was running. Streamers flagged the issue in their broadcasts within minutes.
The confusion stems from mixed messaging. Battlestate Games announced that drops were live, but didn’t clarify that only the free watch-time drops had activated. The paid component remained disabled.
At the scale involved, viewers potentially spent tens of thousands of dollars on subscriptions. A single Tier 1 Twitch sub costs $4.99. The thousands of subs gifted in just the first few minutes alone represent a substantial amount of money.
The situation created uncertainty about whether affected viewers would receive their promised rewards. Some users claimed they did receive the in-game item despite the Twitch page not reflecting the active campaign. Others reported nothing.
What happens to those subs
Twitch has handled similar activation failures in past Support-a-Streamer campaigns for other games. When a campaign misconfiguration occurs, Twitch and publishers can typically backfill rewards for qualifying purchases made during the intended eligibility window.
This process requires users to have their Twitch and game accounts properly linked. Entitlements can take hours or days to populate once the systems sync up.
Neither Twitch nor Battlestate Games issued an official statement at the time addressing the activation delay, its cause, or confirmation of retroactive rewards. The resolution path for affected viewers remains unclear.
