Some big streamers are leaving YouTube for Twitch. Does data say that’s the right move?

Three years ago, major Twitch streamers like DrLupo, Sykkuno, LilyPichu, and TimTheTatman began leaving the platform to sign exclusive livestreaming deals with YouTube. These deals were reportedly so good financially that it would make “absolutely no sense” for streamers to turn them down–and, at the same time, Twitch’s reputation had been souring, from broad-spectrum concerns over its revenue split to individual incidents that showed lack of care, like the platform spelling Sykkuno’s name wrong in an official email.

Now, those deals are ending–and pretty much everyone who signed them is going back to Twitch.

Is that the right move?

Ludwig thinks so, but the whole situation is more complicated than it sounds. So let’s break it down.

First, some context:

• In the time since those streamers moved to YouTube, Twitch has gotten a new CEO, revised its revenue split, and–crucially–begun allowing streamers to broadcast concurrently across Twitch and other platforms.
• Twitch is not growing; it’s actually losing share of the livestreaming market to YouTube. Meanwhile, YouTube has grown 5% since this time last year, and in Q2 2024 generated 15.248 billion watch hours for livestream content. In that same time period, Twitch generated 4.848 billion.
• Ludwig has beef with YouTube over livestreaming. Last December, he gave the platform (which has a streaming deal with him) one year to get its sh*t together on things like having a very slim suite of engagement and moderation tools, not allowing streams longer than 12 consecutive hours, not having enough incentive for subscribers, and the chat system “flowing like a geriatric man’s piss.”

All of these things factor into why streamers are choosing to return to Twitch. But #2 explains why they aren’t just completely abandoning YouTube. Many of them, like DrLupo and TimTheTatman, are choosing to multistream across both Twitch and YouTube, so neither audience is abandoned.

TimTheTatman, for example, had 17,000 viewers on Twitch when he began broadcasting there again after three years of absence; he was multi-streaming, so picked up an additional 11,000 viewers from the audience he’d built on YouTube during that gap.

YouTube’s former head of gaming Ryan Wyatt thinks that’s the strat. “When Twitch eased up its partner policy, allowing people to stream everywhere (the right thing, and they deserve kudos for doing), the correct answer was multi-casting. Expand your reach; there’s too much great software out there that makes it so easy,” he tweeted after DrLupo and TimTheTatman announced they’d begin multistreaming Sept. 1.

Ludwig doesn’t agree: “You don’t become the next Kai Cenat if you have 50,000 viewers on YouTube and 50,000 viewers on Twitch,” he said in the latest episode of Mogul Mail. “You become the next Kai Cenat if you have 90,000 on just one platform and you’re the biggest person on that platform, because the rich get richer on that platform.”

He does admit that smaller streamers who are testing the water, and also bigger creators hosting marquee events like his own Streamer Games should multistream those events; but streamers looking to be “the biggest in the world” should narrow their focus to an audience on one platform.

With that being said, are the people going back to Twitch (whether they’re multistreaming or not) choosing the right platform? As Ludwig points out, it’s clear developing better livestream tools isn’t a priority for YouTube. But despite its lack of investment in the livestreaming side of things, YouTube still generates far more live hours watched overall and still is home to the world’s biggest livestream events by peak viewership.

According to data from Streams Charts, YouTube is responsible for nearly all peak viewership livestream events, from OnePlus India‘s coverage of the latest Indian election peaking at 9.4 million concurrent viewers, Apple‘s product announcements peaking at 3.7 million, and Law&Crime‘s Johnny Depp trial coverage peaking at 3.5 million.

And while YouTube isn’t doing so hot with English-speaking streamers or viewers (who both tend to prefer Twitch because of its better chatting system, Ludwig says), it’s “crushing” with non-English users, especially Asian streamers/viewers.

Ludwig specifically credits VTubers, noting that Kai Cenat and iShowSpeed‘s recent Minecraft stream peaked at 700,000 concurrent viewers on Twitch, while VTuber Minato Aqua‘s stream about leaving management company Hololive peaked at 735,000 on YouTube. (He also says to keep an eye on South Korea, which turned to YouTube after Twitch ceased operations there earlier this year, saying it was too expensive.)

“Twitch isn’t good at getting huge amounts of people to watch one livestream at one moment,” is what Ludwig took from this. “They are good at getting people a high average viewership for a long period of time. Which, honestly, isn’t a bad thing. It works for most people who do more chill streams. But if you are a streamer who does big events, two-hour streams where a lot of hype shit happens […] YouTube is a perfect place to be.”

There are clear pros and cons to both platforms. As for the Tubefilter take on things, we think multistreaming isn’t a bad move, and gives creators a way to evaluate which platform’s tools work best for them–and see where their audience will meet them.