If you had the illusion of starting to do streams on Twitch in the hope of one day “striking gold” and becoming another Ibai, we regret to tell you that it will no longer be possible. If, in and of itself, getting a million-dollar contract with the streaming company was already very challenging today, primarily due to the massive influx of streamers, now it won’t be possible at all.
The announcement was made by Twitch’s CEO, Dan Clancy, who, during the TwitchCon 2023 event, stated in an interview with Bloomberg that the streaming platform is ending these agreements with streamers after getting into a “bidding war” with YouTube and Kick, their direct competitors.
According to Clancy, Twitch has taken this step after deeming the hiring strategy of big streamers, to whom they have paid amounts of up to eight figures (yes, tens of millions of dollars), as “unsustainable.” The CEO stated, “(The strategy) created this bidding war, and I don’t think it’s a sustainable business.”
And you might be thinking, “Well, I’ll go to YouTube and give it a try there, then.” Well, not really. Although they haven’t explicitly stated that they are eliminating these types of contracts with their partners, YouTube is slowing down its hiring pace when it comes to big streamers, such as in the cases of Ludwig and TimTheTatman.
The Bloomberg article mentions that two sources familiar with YouTube’s strategy claim that the company will follow the same steps as Twitch and stop signing big agreements with streamers.
Twitch’s move is another sign that the platform is not at its best and that the entry of Kick, as well as the worsening of payments to streamers, have done a lot of damage to the current streaming leader. On the other hand, Kick has not taken these kinds of measures, but considering that it has a few months left and it’s in its interest to attract big streamers, it’s unlikely that they will do the same as Twitch, at least in the short term.
