The streamer Ludwig Ahgren must close his event company at the end of 2024 and lay off all employees. He explains what the problem is: streamers don’t spend money on cool events. Because viewers don’t want that, they just want to see people in their bedrooms streaming.
This is the message: Ludwig Ahgren is one of the most successful gaming YouTubers in the world. After his record 31-day subathon in 2021, he was considered Twitch’s golden boy but moved to YouTube. He has repeatedly organized elaborate gaming events in the past.
He founded his own company for these events, “Offbrand”, which helps him and other content creators to organize such events.
But that will come to an end at the end of 2024: the employees of the company’s production arm will be laid off and part of the team will be wound up.
The event company simply cannot support itself financially and since his contract with YouTube ends, Ludwig himself cannot inject as much money as he wants. He knows that it won’t be nice to lay people off before Christmas, but time is running out. If things continue as they are now, the financial distress would become so great that even more parts of the business would be threatened with closure.
There are also some streamers among the German creators who organize large events:
These are the 5 most relevant German streamers on Twitch in 2024, according to Google
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Viewers want to have as direct contact as possible with the streamer – little extraneousness
That is his insight: Ludwig says that ultimately there is not enough demand for his offering. His company spent most of its time organizing its own events, but it couldn’t survive financially from that. Ludwig himself is not big enough as a creator for that.
The problem is that almost all big and successful Twitch streamers just sit in their bedroom and play. Almost no one wants to spend $250,000 or $500,000 on a cool event. Only the biggest streamer Kai Cenat organizes events.
Ultimately, this lack of interest in cool events is just a reaction to what viewers want.
Ludwig realized: Most viewers wanted an experience that was as unfiltered and authentic as possible, in which the streamer interacted as much as possible with the chat, i.e. the viewers.
The point of a road trip is not that it is elaborately organized, but rather that the viewer has the feeling of being there first hand. According to Ludwig, that has changed in recent years.
According to Ludwig, viewers wanted “maximum contact” with their streamer and as little in between as possible.
Ludwig speaks from his own experience as proof that events don’t work out:
Ultimately, such events only pay off if you get large companies as sponsors who can support them financially. But that is apparently not so easy in the tense economic situation.
Personal connection to the streamer is obviously more important than high production costs
Where else can you see this? In Germany, the influencer Knossi is primarily responsible for organizing large events that are reminiscent of RTL2 formats. Other big streamers like Gronkh do their charity events once a year.
Streamers like Trymacs or HandOfBlood also like to organize events, but they often have a “small framework”: The camera expert SkylineTV is hired as a one-man crew to broadcast the event and stay as small and authentic as possible you cycle through the area in a group or compete in fasting.
There is a similar example from German e-sports. The individual streamer Tolkin has more viewers when he broadcasts League of Legends than the company responsible for it with a large production effort.
Apparently the bond and personal contact with an individual is more important to viewers on Twitch than high production values and effort: LoL: German streamer has more viewers for Worlds on Twitch than the official stream of his ex-company