“I didn’t know it was that easy”

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LetsHugo became famous with Minecraft, but now mainly shows Just Chatting on Twitch. Now he’s realizing that gaming on YouTube is paying off.

Which streamer is it about? LetsHugo is a German-speaking streamer from Luxembourg that experienced rapid growth between 2022 and 2023. In a recent stream, he showed how much he earns from his gaming channel on YouTube.

The streamer explains that he has not been very active on his channel for gaming content so far. Looking back, he couldn’t understand that because it was “free money”. Videos with over 170,000 views earned him 600 to 700 euros. A video with 47,000 views in which LetsHugo is insulted by Trymacs brought in at least 183 euros.

Why is this special for him? The videos are not produced specifically for YouTube, but rather excerpts from its streams. They are put together by an editor and then published on YouTube – so you can reuse the same content and get double the money with comparatively little effort.

What’s particularly interesting for LetsHugo is that the gaming videos seem to be almost more lucrative than the videos on his main channel, even though he puts a lot more effort into them. The streamer says he feels really “ripped off”. He didn’t realize how easy it was to make money this way.

He always thought that he had to make the “best video in the world”. He knows how worthwhile the gaming videos are from his Twitch colleague Papaplatte: LetsHugo organized an “XXL Olympiad” with him. Papaplatte turned it into a 2 1/2 hour video that received 1.6 million views and earned him more than 21,000 euros.

The Luxembourger is still a long way from achieving such figures, but he seems determined to get a piece of the gaming pie.

He dropped out of school because streaming was more important to him – The success of LetsHugo

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Just Chatting rules on Twitch

Why is this interesting? Many streamers on Twitch are currently having the opposite experience: gaming is hardly worth it for many people. Just Chatting is by far the most viewed category in recent years (via SullyGnome). Streamers use them to show reactions, interact with their fans or for formats such as opening gifts from viewers.

Papaplatte, one of the most successful streamers on German Twitch, even reported that many of his colleagues were downright afraid to show gaming. As soon as they switch from Just Chatting to a game, they would lose viewers, says Papaplatte.

Many content creators have integrated “Just Chatting” into their streams and chat with viewers for a while before starting a game. The share of Just Chatting seems to be steadily increasing in recent years:

  • In 2019, the first full year the category existed, Asmongold showed 0.6% Just Chatting and 91.9% World of Warcraft. 5 years later, he is streaming on his second account and Just Chatting makes up almost 60% of his content (via TwitchTracker).
  • For Gronkh, Just Chatting accounted for just over 25% of his streaming time in 2019, and more than 45% in 2023. This year he seems to be really enjoying gaming again with strong survival titles like Palworld and Enshrouded. The share of Just Chatting is 36% for 2024 so far (via TwitchTracker).
  • Jynxzi is currently the absolute high-flyer on Twitch, even though his content goes completely against the mainstream: he shows almost exclusively the shooter Rainbow Six Siege. In 2019 he wasn’t in Just Chatting at all, but this year the category made up 11% of his streams (via TwitchTracker).

    • Even if the examples mentioned are only samples, there is still a trend towards more Just Chatting. LetsHugo itself almost only showed Minecraft in 2019. The block game made up 91% of his stream time. In 2024, however, he spent 47% of his time on Just Chatting, followed by over 16% IRL (via TwitchTracker). Now he’s celebrating success with gaming – but on a completely different platform.

    The concept of uploading stream excerpts to YouTube and benefiting twice from them has become established in recent years. Because YouTube is generally considered to be the more lucrative platform. However, videos produced with great effort are not necessarily rewarded by the algorithm. That’s why many big YouTubers are moving to Twitch right now.

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