The streamer Ludwig Ahgren has to close his event company and lay off all employees by the end of 2024. He explains what the problem is: streamers do not spend money on cool events. Viewers do not want that; they only want to see people streaming in their bedrooms.
This is the news: Ludwig Ahgren is one of the most successful gaming YouTubers in the world. After his 31-day record subathon in 2021, he was considered the golden boy of Twitch, but he switched to YouTube. He has repeatedly organized elaborate gaming events in the past.
He founded his own company for these events called “Offbrand,” which helps him but also other content creators to organize such events.
But by the end of 2024, this will come to an end: the employees of the company’s production arm will be laid off, and that part of the team will be dismantled.
The event company simply cannot support itself financially, and since his contract with YouTube is ending, Ludwig cannot inject unlimited funds. He knows that it is not nice to lay off people just before Christmas, but time is running out. If things continue this way, the financial distress will become so great that even more parts of the business would be threatened by closure.
Among the German creators, there are also some streamers who organize large events:
Viewers want as direct contact with streamers as possible – little fluff
This is his insight: Ludwig says that ultimately there is not enough demand for his offer. His company has spent most of the time organizing its own events, but it cannot survive financially from that. Ludwig himself is just not big enough as a creator for that.
The problem is that almost all large and successful Twitch streamers are simply sitting and playing in their bedrooms. Almost no one wants to spend $250,000 or $500,000 on a cool event. Only the biggest streamer, Kai Cenat, organizes events.
This lack of interest in cool events is ultimately just a reaction to what viewers want.
Ludwig has realized that most viewers want the most unfiltered, authentic experience, where the streamer interacts as much as possible with the chat, that is, the viewers.
On a road trip, it is not about it being elaborately organized, but about the viewer feeling like they are up close and personal. According to Ludwig, this has changed in recent years.
According to Ludwig, viewers want “maximum contact” with their streamer and as little in between as possible.
As evidence that the calculations with events do not add up, Ludwig speaks from personal experience:
- A “home event” where he played endless LoL with friends in his house cost practically nothing, but brought great viewer numbers.
- At a real “event,” flights and hotel rooms have to be booked, and employees have to be paid. But the viewer numbers simply do not justify that.
Such events only make sense if you win large companies as sponsors who can financially handle it. But that seems to be not so easy in the current economic situation.
Personal connection to the streamer apparently more important than high production effort
Where can you still see this? In Germany, the influencer Knossi is mainly responsible for organizing large events reminiscent of RTL2 formats. Other large streamers like Gronkh hold their charity events once a year.
Streamers like Trymacs or HandOfBlood also like to organize events, but they often have a “small scale”: the camera expert SkylineTV is hired as a one-man crew to broadcast the event, and they try to remain as small and authentic as possible while biking around in a group or competing in fasting.
There is a similar example from the German E-Sport. The individual streamer Tolkin has more viewers when he streams League of Legends than the company responsible for it with a large production effort.
It seems that 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 former company
