YouTuber Quackity has responded to accusations from multiple former moderators on his private Minecraft server, named QSMP. Moderators allege that they were underpaid and overworked.
According to claims online, QSMP had multiple unpaid moderators working behind the scenes to run the server. Their stories quickly exploded on social media, with the QSMP trending on Twitter with over 75,000 posts on March 4.
Quackity is a streamer with nearly 20 million followers across YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch. He appeared on stream on Sunday night, saying that “volunteers were not being paid and were spending too many hours on activities.” He said he will “perform a deep investigation” to see what is happening.
“I wanna make one thing clear, everybody involved in Quackity Studios will be paid,” Quackity said during the livestream. “And if at any point my funds are not sufficient enough to pay workers or maintain the project, then the QSMP cannot continue.”
Member of the QSMP and popular Minecraft creator Tubbo said on a March 4 stream that the server would be “shut for the next few days.” The Quackity Studios Twitter account confirmed it the same day.
How Did We Get Here?
Quackity started as a creator at only 13 years old in 2013. He has spent most of the past decade making edgy gaming videos. But in 2020, he was invited to take part in a private survival multiplayer Minecraft server (SMP) of Dream, who was one of the largest creators of that year.
In the Dream SMP, top creators roleplayed as revolutionaries and created elaborate lore that fans consumed millions of hours of. According to Socialblade, Quackity went from one million Twitch viewers a month in January 2020 to 14 million by February 2021.
In March 2023, Quackity launched the QSMP, his own private Minecraft server. However, unlike other servers, this server would be multi-lingual. A computer program would translate messages said in the game into multiple languages in real-time.
Creators from non-English speaking countries, like France and Brazil, were able to reach entirely new audiences. But the automated translation program could only do so much. So the server also needed bilingual moderators to help run things behind the scenes.
The Accusations Against QSMP
On Feb. 29, 22-year-old French moderator Léa started to share her experience working on the QSMP. According to tweets written in French, she started as a volunteer. Then, she became an employee making roughly $183 dollars a month.
She claimed that server managers needed her to be consistently available to pick up various types of work including voicing multiple characters in the SMP streams, designed art, and helped write the server’s storylines.
In the tweets, Léa says the QSMP eventually fired her two weeks ago. She said it was because it got leaked on stream that she spoke to YouTuber Aypierre.
According to QSMP policies, moderators are “forbidden” from talking to streamers. (Aypierre confirmed in a tweet that they did talk and the leak was his “fault.”)
Over the next week after the QSMP fired Léa, other moderators would start to come forward with their own stories.
“A lot of us admins are so eager to work for our favorite [content creators] that we weren’t seeing the problems,” Léa tweeted.
Another French moderator, iBob, said on Twitter that moderators “were purely volunteers.” He said they did the work of “community managers for free.” He also confirmed that the organization asked admins not to talk to each other or the top creators.
In addition, user Noa wrote in Portuguese that the QSMP did not pay him for translating threads and editing clips. He alleged the organization eventually fired him after being unable to keep up with the workload, showing Discord screenshots of his termination notice.
The Ramifications
In a now-deleted eight-page statement posted on March 3, a moderator who identified themselves as “Jay,” one of the “people in charge of the Quackity Studio structure,” claimed that Léa “misconstrued a lot of situations.”
Jay alleged the organization paid Léa a lower rate because she failed to “pass the trial period” to earn a higher rank in the organization. The post confirmed that the organization asked moderators to sign NDAs to protect actors and their assets.
Quackity said in his stream that the moderator made the statement without his “approval.” Quackity did not respond to Passionfruit’s request for comment via email.
The QSMP server is an ecosystem within itself, where dozens of creators accumulate millions of views a month. It has no Patreon and only sells a single globe collectible item as merchandise. Still, these creators are earning large payouts from YouTube views, Twitch subscriptions, and donations while playing in the QSMP.
These creators who monetize on the internet have employees working around the clock to keep their empires running. It only makes sense that those creators should also pay their moderators.
When reached for comment, Léa directed Passionfruit to Solidaires Informatique — a French labor union of IT workers, including those in the video game space.
Mathis, a representative of the organization, said in an email that the union had been “in contact with Léa and some other QSMP voluntary workers for a few days.” Mathis claimed that Léa was working “full-time hours,” which is about 35 hours a week.
“According to French law, we claim Léa should have a classic employment contract, with minimum salary and all French social rights,” Mathis said.
The future of the QSMP remains in the air, and it’s unclear what Quackity’s investigation could uncover.
But at the very least, it’s clear the creators behind QSMP need to pay those involved — across multiple countries — for their work properly.
