With Valkyrae’s five-year YouTube contract ended, fans may wonder what’s next for the streamer and whether she’ll now move to popular streaming platform Twitch full-time.
Rachel “Valkyrae” Marie Hofstetter is one of the biggest names in the livestreaming scene. She’s known primarily for working with fellow streamers such as Imane “Pokimane” Anys, and for being the co-owner of the gaming organization 100 Thieves. The streamer left Twitch to exclusively stream on YouTube thanks to a pricey contract she was awarded, but that’s changing soon.
Valkyrae has announced that her exclusive streaming contract with YouTube has ended. Now fans wonder whether they’ll see their favorite steamer on Twitch or if she’ll sign another contract with YouTube.
Valkyrae has announced that she’ll stream again on Twitch after five years on January 8, 2025.
The streamer’s return stream is slated to be a marathon stream lasting for an unknown amount of time. The stream will also celebrate Valkyrae’s birthday and 10 years of her streaming career. While unconfirmed, the return will likely feature other known content creators and be will similar to an IRL stream as previous birthday streams have followed this formula.
Creators including Lily “LilyPichu” Ki and Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker were present during Rae’s previous birthday stream that was aired on YouTube. Pokimane had already replied to Valkyrae’s Twitch stream announcement to congratulate her. In response, Rae asked her if she was free on January 8. Pokimane said she that she was indeed free, suggesting she’ll likely be present during the stream. Rani “Stable Ronaldo” Netz also chimed in to say he was free, and the two streamers have streamed together before, though Valkyrae didn’t give him a public reply.
Valkyrae hasn’t announced a contract with any streaming platform, suggesting she may create content on Twitch and YouTube simultaneously rather than exclusively moving to Twitch.
In her announcement post, Valkyrae stated her “last contract streaming exclusively on YouTube” concluded. Despite having three concluded contracts with the platform, her statement suggests she won’t sign another exclusive streaming deal with YouTube.
Valkyrae’s Twitch channel sits at a little over 1 million followers following her return announcement. By contrast, her YouTube channel has over 4 million subscribers and her streams consistently get over 100,000 views. Additionally, the streamer uploads vlogs, tours, and challenge videos on YouTube.
Without an exclusive contract restricting Valkyrae to one particular company, she likely won’t limit herself to streaming on any one platform. She’s returning to Twitch, but will want to retain the audience she’s built on YouTube over five years. It’s more likely that the streamer will continue to upload videos and VODs to YouTube while streaming live on Twitch again. Valkyrae is a co-host of the Press Esc YouTube podcast, so it’s very unlikely that she would abandon YouTube altogether.
Many streamers who previously held YouTube streaming contracts have since moved to Twitch to stream full-time there. Google is reportedly apprehensive about handing out expensive streaming contracts and wants to focus more on short-form content. Valkyrae may stream simultaneously across YouTube and Twitch in the future, though nothing has been confirmed by the popular streamer just yet.
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