Streamer Valkyrae has decided to re-sign with YouTube Gaming. She's been exclusively streaming on the platform since early 2020, and this new contract will see her remaining there until January 2024, a two year deal.
Valkyrae, a co-owner of esports brand 100 Thieves, recently walked away from a "gamer-oriented" skincare product she'd partnered with after some public blowback. She is the second most popular female streamer based on hours watched, behind only Twitch star Amouranth. According to Dextero, Valkyrae had 30.6 million streaming hours watched in 2021, while Amouranth had 38.8 million.
YouTube Gaming has been steadily growing its roster of exclusive streamers in order to continue to build the platform and brand. In 2021, DrLupo, TimTheTatMan and Ludwig moved from Twitch to YouTube. Ludwig got banned twice in just a few days of streaming for the platform, both times for watching copyrighted videos while on stream. His move seems to have upset someone at Twitch, as he was snubbed in the company's 2021 recap.
Back in September, before he joined the platform, Ludwig stated on a podcast that he had secret information and believed more streamers would be leaving Twitch for its rival, Youtube. He cited the reason as a lack of good contracts being offered by Twitch, whereas DrLupo described himself as being "secure for life" after signing his YouTube deal.
It's now looking like Ludwig's claim could be coming true and Pokimane could also be moving to YouTube. Her two-year Twitch contract expired yesterday and she told fans that she'd have news on where she'll be next on February 8. While she hasn't explicitly stated she's leaving, she did say, "you guys can join me for the next chapter," so it seems likely she's moving on.
Pokimane has recently been the target of harassment from former Twitch streamer JiDion and his fans. He instructed his fans to spam her chat during a hate raid and then made several sexist remarks about her. He has since been permanently banned from the platform, but even after telling his fans to stop attacking her, they have continued, showing how hard it is to control a community when you rile them up.
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