In January 2024, two well-known German gaming YouTubers announced that they would be shutting down the production of their elaborate videos and streaming more on Twitch in the future: HandOfBlood and Kalle Koschinsky. Reason enough for MeinMMO to take a look at it: Why do YouTubers switch to Twitch?
What is the situation? In recent years, Twitch has suffered a lot of criticism and lost some of its top streamers.
But in the last few weeks a new development has suddenly emerged. Maximilian “HandOfBlood” Knabe, one of the most famous German gaming YouTubers, surprisingly decided to switch to Twitch in January 2024. Shortly before, fellow YouTuber Kalle Koschinsky had made a similar announcement.
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YouTube is only partially worthwhile for many creators
What suddenly makes Twitch attractive again? The content creators’ ultimate motivations for switching may vary from person to person. In its announcement, HandOfBlood reported a lack of self-realization and dwindling fun when shooting videos. He lost himself a bit with the YouTube videos he designed – the viewers wanted more “pure Hänno” again.
Nevertheless, some patterns can be identified. One statement keeps coming up in the discussion: “Elaborate videos are not worth it.” In 2023, the YouTuber “Jules” shared his calculated hourly wage of €5.29 for working on his through-composed videos. He expressed the suspicion that YouTube was simply no longer made for complex videos.
On YouTube, this is due, among other things, to the so-called CPM, which indicates how much content creators earn per view. The value is set individually for each channel and depends on various factors. This means that the German Twitch streamer Trymacs earns different amounts from his channels and others even only receive cents.
This type of monetization makes it much more difficult for some content creators to make money on YouTube. It is precisely the relative financial security that makes the video platform attractive for many. This security on YouTube has long been countered by a culture on Twitch that encourages constant “grind” and even self-exploitation.
However, content creators have now realized that the almighty algorithm favors those YouTubers who regularly create new videos – and penalizes those who rarely upload new videos to YouTube.
Twitch streams provide “free” content for YouTube
Then what is the golden formula? So two elements come together:
The trend in the USA has been known for several years for large content creators to broadcast on Twitch and then reuse excerpts from their videos on YouTube. Streamers like Asmongold or xQc started this trend of streaming live on Twitch and only uploading excerpts to YouTube.
In recent years, this trend has become more and more established, also through the so-called “reaction meta”: Twitch streamers watch the videos of other content creators on YouTube, TikTok or Twitch live on Twitch and react to them. Excerpts from these reactions are then published on YouTube.
The streamers have the best of both worlds: They play on Twitch live, interact with the chat and other content creators, collect subs or can accommodate their advertising deals and remain relevant.
At the same time, they can regularly upload videos to YouTube that do not require any additional work for them – editors, freelance and employed, usually take over the editing and uploading of the videos.
In fact, both HandOfBlood and Kalle Koschinsky announced that not much would change on their YouTube channels. The former uploads videos to his second channel “HandOfUncut” in the same style as usual – only that they are recordings from his stream instead of videos he produced himself.
Kalle Koschinsky also continues to provide recordings of his streams on his YouTube channel for those viewers who cannot or do not want to be there live. So far, however, these videos have had significantly fewer views than his usual content. So it remains to be seen whether the switch to the “Daily Streamer” will pay off in the long term.
Gifted entertainers like HandOfBlood in particular can rely on their charisma and ability to improvise and operate live in the stream, but continue to use and feed their built-up reach for YouTube for maximum profit.
It is no coincidence that German YouTubers in particular are now increasingly switching to Twitch; it is currently the established business model that promises maximum reach.