“You’ll be shocked when you see who’s going to switch from Twitch to YouTube next”

The streamer Moistcr1tikal comments on the current change from Twitch streamer Ludwig to competitor YouTube. He explains the background to the switch and says that even more streamers will switch soon. And apparently some of the platform’s main streamers.

This is the situation:

• Twitch is by far the market leader in live streaming. The number of viewers continued to explode during the corona pandemic. Amazon bought Twitch for $ 970 million in 2014 and it’s proving to be a worthwhile investment. In 2020, the streaming service had sales of $ 2.3 billion. 20 times more than in 2016 (via businessofapps).
• But YouTube and Facebook have now also discovered live streaming for themselves. YouTube in particular regularly poaches on Twitch and recruits streamers who have made a name for themselves on Twitch. They are tempted with exclusive contracts lasting several years. Streamers speak of YouTube waving money that “changes life”.
• It has now been announced that the Twitch streamer Ludwig is switching to YouTube. That’s a big number.

Twitch pays around 10 times less than the competition

This is how a streamer assesses the situation: The Twitch streamer Moistcr1tikal often deals with Twitch topics. He talks about how it came about that someone like Ludwig changes and gives a glimpse behind the scenes.

As the streamer says, money is of course a factor. Twitch pays about a tenth of what most other providers offer in contracts. Moistcr1tikal in numbers refers to insights he has from managing other content creators.

He says Twitch pays “un-ironically about a tenth”.

“So when you see people switching platforms, most of the time it’s because of the money.”

Ludwig wanted donations limit on his channel – Twitch declined the request

The streamer explains, however, that in the case of Ludwig there was something else behind it.

He says Ludwig asked Twitch a favor. They should set a limit on how much money his viewers can donate to Ludwig’s channel. Ludwig has a guilty conscience when fans donate too much to him and wanted to limit that. Pokimane has a similar donation limit.

But Twitch flatly refused this request.

“Twitch Believes They Have A Monopoly”

For Moistcr1tikal, this attitude from Twitch of not getting into streamers is a big reason why many are switching:

“Twitch thinks they have a monopoly, so they don’t mind losing Ludwig. Twitch needs to understand that most people want to stay on Twitch. “

The streamer says he loves Twitch, Ludwig loves Twitch, but Twitch also has to show that you are fighting for the streamers. Otherwise it is really difficult to stay with the platform.

Ludwig is after all the streamer on Twitch who earns the sixth most on the platform, and Twitch was not ready to fight for him.

How does it go on? Moistcr1itikal says that internally this is a huge issue among streamers.

“Many streamers talk to each other about whether they will switch platforms. Some have chosen to do so. I think a lot of you will be shocked to see the next few leave Twitch. “

Who would be the worst losses for Twitch? It doesn’t really get much worse than Ludwig. The even larger category is actually only xQc. However, YouTube has so far refrained from such “controversial streamers”, hiring friendly streamers like TimTheTatman, DrLupo or Valkyrae.

Even DrDisrespect streams on YouTube without an exclusive contract.

The loss of Twitch veterans such as summit1g, shroud or Sodapoppin would certainly hurt them. The loss of streamers who stand for diversity, such as Pokimane or Myth, would certainly be painful.

Although there are doubts how seriously Twitch takes the topic of “diversity”.

Disguised Toast recently complained that, as an American with Asian origins, he also served a target group on Twitch – but he was told by Twitch that they had Faker under contract, which Disguised Toast was completely stunned to take note of. The LoL star doesn’t even speak English, you can’t put him in the same category as him.

Leak shows: Twitch creates many millionaires and most of them are white and male