All The Big Streamers Who Left Twitch (So Far)

Since Ninja left for Mixer in August 2019, several other major Twitch streamers have left Amazon’s site for other platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

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Twitch long held a monopoly on gaming’s most popular streaming personalities, but things changed drastically in 2019, when many major streamers left Twitch for Mixer, YouTube, and Facebook. These exits from Amazon’s streaming site formed one of 2019’s biggest ongoing gaming news stories, capturing headlines as streamers continued to leave established Twitch followings behind.

Twitch was intertwined with one of 2019’s most notable in-game events, as well, as Fortnite’s “The End” event caused Twitch connectivity issues for some of the more than six million who tuned in to watch. But it was people leaving, not tuning in, that made Twitch’s biggest story last year. When the site’s (and the entire internet’s) most popular streamer, Ninja, left Twitch for Microsoft’s Mixer in August, it started a continuing exodus of others Twitch personalities.

The effects of these continued streamer losses have yet to fully materialize, but Twitch has made clear it’s willing to make sacrifices to keep the streamers it still has. In December, Twitch reportedly spent millions to keep popular streamers Ben “DrLupo” Lupo, Timothy “TimTheTatman” Betar, and Saqib “Lirik” Zahid on the platform. Chances are Twitch will need to do more of this as time goes on and influencers begin to command more secure paydays and exclusivity deals, and as YouTube and Mixer continue to grow, but perhaps keeping streamers is just a matter of adjusting Twitch contract policies. After all, if why Ninja left for Mixer is any indication, it appears Twitch simply wasn’t listening well enough to streamers’ goals and needs – though much of those are likely still financial.

As the so-called “streaming wars” rage on, however, Twitch is bound to see more streamers leave its site. The following streamers have already left, marking a major shift in the live-streaming industry towards a diversity of platforms rather than Twitch dominance.

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins

With more than 14 million Twitch followers at the time he left, Ninja was by far the most well-known name and face in video game streaming. And that’s exactly what made his sudden exit from Twitch one of the most surprising moments of 2019. Less than a week after he left, Ninja already had one million Mixer subscribers. But as a consequence of moving to a smaller platform, that rapid growth hasn’t kept up. As of writing, Ninja has just more than 2.8 million followers on Mixer – a fraction of what he had on Twitch. Meanwhile, Twitch’s current most-followed active streamer, the controversy-prone Turner “Tfue” Tenney, has 7.4 million Twitch followers.

Michael “shroud” Grzesiek

Before leaving Twitch for Mixer, shroud was the platform’s third most-followed content creator (after Ninja and Tfue). He followed Ninja to Mixer about two months after Ninja’s exit, marking the beginning of what would become a strong trend in the streaming community.

Cory “KingGothalion” Michael

Variety streamer KingGothalion was nowhere near as big on Twitch as the previous two, having just more than a million followers before leaving. But KingGothalion’s transition to Mixer once again showed how aggressively Microsoft’s streaming platform was approaching the streaming wars.

Jack “CouRage” Dunlop

CouRage, streamer and member of esports organization 100 Thieves, had 2.1 million followers before exiting Twitch. His abandonment of the platform was different than those previous, however, because CouRageJD left Twitch for YouTube. This was the first major blow Google dealt to Twitch, further complicating 2019’s streaming platform drama with yet another brand pulling streamers away from the industry’s standard site.

Soleil “EwOk” Wheeler

While she did not have many Twitch followers at the time she left – about 280,000 – EwOk was a well-known Fortnite streaming personality. At 13 years old, EwOk became the first female member of the FaZe Clan esports organization. She is also deaf, making her success in competitive video games (in which players are often alerted to competitors’ actions via sound) even more impressive. EwOk joined Mixer in November 2019.

Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang

A popular Hearthstone streamer-turned-variety streamer, Disguised Toast’s departure from Twitch was particularly surprising – not because he left, but because he left for Facebook Gaming. While data is not available for Facebook Gaming (according to StreamLabs), Facebook Gaming appears to be the smallest of the four major sites, making streamers’ jumps to the platform a bit more unexpected. Disguised Toast went from 1.3 million Twitch followers to just 207,000 on Facebook.

Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios

Following Disguised Toast, another popular streamer moved to Facebook. This time, former Super Smash Bros. pro ZeRo joined Facebook Gaming for an exclusive streaming contract. ZeRo went from 520,000 Twitch followers to 80,000 Facebook followers. He still regularly uploads videos to his 874,000 YouTube channel subscribers.

Corinna Kopf

Facebook’s final acquisition of the year was Fortnite streamer Corinna Kopf. After a controversial Twitch ban in early December, it seemed Kopf could soon leave Twitch, as she teased on Twitter that it might be time to “see what else is out there.” Kopf then announced at the end of the month that she would be moving to Facebook Gaming.

Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter, Elliott “Muselk” Watkins, & Lannan “LazarBeam” Eacott

On January 13, 2020, three more streamers announced exclusive deals with YouTube: Valkyrae, Muselk, and LazarBeam. Like CouRage, Valkyrae is a member of 100 Thieves (the organization’s first female member). On Twitch, she had 945,000 followers, and she has 837,000 subscribers on YouTube. Muselk, meanwhile, was already a popular YouTuber, with more than eight million subscribers as of writing. He had previously hosted live content on Twitch for 421,000 followers. LazarBeam, like Muselk, had a huge following on YouTube, with 12.3 million subscribers, but only had 170,000 Twitch followers.

According to StreamLabs’ Q4 2019 report (compiled from Newzoo data), Twitch remains the leader of the streaming industry, but the platform saw a decline in hours watched, hours streamed, unique channels, and average concurrent viewers near the end of the year. YouTube Gaming, meanwhile, was the only platform to experience an increase in hours watched, hours streamed, and concurrent viewership in Q4, and Mixer now has almost as many channels streaming as Twitch. The future of all four platforms is uncertain, but it’s at least safe to say Twitch will continue losing top streamers in 2020, unless there is some kind of drastic change.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/streamers-who-left-twitch/