Twitch has made their move as competition heats up between the live streaming platforms. Twitch has signed exclusive deals with three of their top streamers Dr. Lupo, LIRIK, and TimTheTatman, to stream exclusively on Twitch for the next few years. This is no surprise, as the loss of any more of their large personalities would be a huge blow to the platform.
Exclusivity With Twitch
News first broke out when Esports reporter and consultant Rod Breslau, aka Slasher, tweeted that the three streamers will be announced later that day that they have re-signed with Twitch. Followed by a reply to himself stating that "all of the deals are in the millions of dollar[s] per year, according to sources."
Slasher gave a final follow-up stating that the three streamers are all represented by the talent agency Loaded, who also represents some of the other biggest streamers, including Ninja, shroud, and CouRage. He notes that Loaded "continues to bring in multi-million dollar contract deals for all of their top clients."
Benjamin "Dr. Lupo" Lupo, Saqib "LIRIK" Zahid, and Timothy "TimTheTatman" Betar have about 3.7 million, 2.5 million, and 4.2 million respectively for a total of almost 10.4 million combined subscriber count. All three of the streamers have grown their careers largely with Twitch, having begun as early as way back in 2011.
This move was a costly but important move for Twitch, especially following the loss of some of their biggest names just earlier this year. Mike Aragon, Twitch's senior VP of content and partnerships, in a statement to The Verge, expressed that they were "really excited that DrLupo, LIRIK, and TimTheTatman will keep calling Twitch home...". He further explained that they were "... thrilled to be able to partner with and invest in them..."
The Competition Heats Up
The move from Twitch was not all too surprising, as they're trying to keep a hold on their talents, or the talents they have left. Many of Twitch's top streamers left in what seemed to be an exodus just earlier this year, with Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek and Tyler "Ninja" Blevins leaving for Microsoft's Mixer. Mixer has been steadily growing its user base with its unique features such as Co-Streaming where viewers will be able to watch multiple streams at once in split-screen fashion. Of course, the growth is no doubt also thanks to their sniping of some of Twitch's biggest titles.
Of course, Shroud and Ninja definitely had their own reasons for moving to Mixer. Besides the financial incentives, the streamer has, for one, expressed discontent for Twitch, having promoted pornographic content accidentally on his channel while he was offline. Although another reason may be that as Fornite's popularity wanes, the former Halo pro is expecting Halo: Infinite to be the perfect next step in his career. But since Halo: Infinite is still some time away, fans will have to play Halo: Reach and the rest of the Master Chief Collection while they wait.
Of course, Youtube Live also continues to grow, surely thanks to the migration of Jack "CouRage" Dunlop and Lachlan Power. Not only is this thanks to the foundations built by Youtube, but Google is also making sure that their integration makes the live streaming experience perfectly seamless for both the streamers and the viewers.
Ultimately, Twitch's latest move is simply the next step in the growing competition among the live streaming platforms. What this means for the fans, hopefully, is that these steps will continue to improve the state of live streaming and e-sports.
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