The battle for the biggest streamers in the world continues. With Rachel “Valkyrae” Hofsetter, Twitch loses one of its biggest female streamers. The 28-year-old American is moving to YouTube Gaming after building a community on Twitch with Fortnite .
Who is she? The 28-year-old Rachel Marie Hofsetter, known as Valkyrae, has been a streamer on Twitch since 2016.
Valkyrae is a member of the eSports organization 100 Thieves and thus part of their YouTube universe. She published a video on YouTube featuring Jack “CourRage” Dunlop, who already switched from Twitch to YouTube in November 2019.
- Valkyrae has 945,218 followers on Twitch, making her one of the largest female streamers on a platform dominated by men.
- She has a strong presence on YouTube with about 822,000 subscribers.
- On Instagram, she is also active with 1.7 million followers.
On Twitch, she has streamed the following games in the last 365 days (via sullygnome):
- 511 hours of Fortnite – that was also her most successful game
- 153 hours in LoL Auto-Chess, Teamfight Tactics
- 136 hours in League of Legends
- Minecraft with 80 hours
- In Just Chatting, she was live for 72 hours
With about 1200 hours on air, Valkyrae was quite active on Twitch – similar hours on Twitch were logged by the biggest German streamers in 2019.
Leaker anticipates announcement – talks about a lot of money
This is how the transition went: Before she could announce the transition herself, the leaker Rod “Slasher” Breslau took care of it for her.
He also provided the information that Valkyrae will receive a lot of money for her transition from Twitch to YouTube, but less than the “1 million $ or more per year,” as other big influencers have received recently.
Breslau says: Valkyrae’s agency would have brokered the deal for her. They are working to secure the best possible deals for all their clients on Mixer, Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook.
Valkyrae herself announced the transition in a Twitter clip. In the video, she shows milestones of her life and also signs of her personal success that benefited her loved ones. Now she is ready to open a new chapter in her life.
Starting from January 14, she will stream exclusively on YouTube.
YouTube recruits streamers who are already on YouTube
This is what it’s about: One can apply what the head of YouTube Gaming, Ryan Wyatt, said regarding the recruitment of Jack “CouRage” Dunlop.
The exclusive recruitment of streamers is a way to strengthen YouTube’s presence in “streaming”.
When YouTube looks at whom to recruit, they pay attention to the fact that the talents already have an “established presence” on YouTube. (via The Verge)
Wyatt therefore sees such exclusive contracts as investments by YouTube Gaming in “existing talent” that they believe in and wish to further develop.
In contrast to the transition of Corinna Kopf, who was somewhat bitter towards Twitch, this appears to be a purely business decision.
A contract with a high base income, which is to be assumed here, gives Valkyrae the freedom to do what she wants without having to worry about subscriber numbers. This had Jack “CouRage” Dunlop described as the biggest problem in his daily life on Twitch.
