Gladd shatters Twitch sub-train record during Destiny 2 drops event

Isaac McIntyre

Popular Destiny 2 streamer Sean ‘Gladd’ Gallagher has shattered his old Twitch sub-train record, which was the biggest on the platform, during a Bungie-helmed drops event for the huge online first-person shooter.

A new Destiny 2 promotion, in partnership with Twitch, means Guardians who link their two accounts and gift two subscriptions will unlock an in-game emblem, shader, and more. It’s a simple promo, but one that’s sent Gladd’s sub-count shooting into the stratosphere.

On July 1, the Twitch star hopped on for his usual stream. In regards to the promo, he asked his fans to save their two gifted subs for “smaller streamers” instead of him. Luckily for him, they ignored him, and started piling on the subs.

His sub-train count, which the streamer keeps track of just above his face-cam, ticked over to 13,000 just hours into the broadcast before a crash threatened to derail the historic moment.

Gladd was able to recover soon after, however, and the ever-growing sub-train picked up its steam just as quickly as before. As of publication, Dexerto can confirm the Destiny steamer’s ‘train’ count is sitting at 25,238, and it isn’t slowing down.

Needless to say, Gladd was shocked. The lowest sub-option, Tier 1, clocks in at around $4.99 USD. That means if every subscriber in the train chose the lower option, and assuming Gladd is taking home most of the profits, he’s already made over $125,000.

To keep the train going, Gladd has remained on stream for more than 35 hours as well. The up-time on his current broadcast reads just under 23 hours, but once you add on the original crash his live time rockets up into more than a day and a half.

Gladd has already cleared the 25k mark in his Twitch sub-train, and it doesn't look like it's slowing down either.
Gladd has already cleared the 25k mark in his Twitch sub-train, and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down either.

It doesn’t look like he’s slowing down either. He declared during one of the Destiny 2 Raids he was running through that he was “sticking around as long as people kept subscribing” before adding he was “just blown away” by it all.

“This train is beyond intense… it’s just absurd. It’s so weird. I don’t know how I’m supposed to react to something like this,” he said.“If I don’t end the stream the train just continues? Just thinking about it is actually blowing my mind.”

The historic Twitch stream hasn’t been without a spoonful of controversy either though. The streamer made the decision to air some of his old Raid re-runs to “take a quick break,” which drew ire from many of the viewers in his chat.

He apologized soon after: “I’m truly sorry if I’ve upset you. It’s been an overwhelming stream, I was losing steam, chat was hyped, and I needed to step away… I made a choice in the heat of the moment to keep chat’s hype going; it was the inner entertainer in me. Next time I’ll try to think of others.”

Right now, Gladd’s stream is still live. Not only that, but the sub-train only seems to be slowly picking up pace; the Twitch star could be on-track to hit 30,000 soon if he chooses to stay on long enough to hit his 48th-hour broadcasting. Dexerto will keep you updated on the milestones as his stream continues.

He’s also confirmed he’s going to “take it as long as he can go” for the time being. “I think I can stay on. If need be I can put it [the stream] in a null category for a bit and do a sleeping stream or something. We’ll talk about it when we get there.”

About The Author

Isaac was formerly the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. Isaac began his writing career as a sports journalist at Fairfax Media, before falling in love with all things esports and gaming. Since then he's covered Oceanic and global League of Legends for Upcomer, Hotspawn, and Snowball Esports.