Popular variety streamer LilyPichu announces move to YouTube Gaming
Internet personality and live streamer Lily Ki or better known as LilyPichu announced her move to YouTube on Thursday this week. In a video posted on her socials, the streamer addressed that she had struck a deal with the platform, and starting on Friday, July 8 fans can find her streams on YouTube Gaming instead of Twitch.
LilyPichu’s announcement video garnered support from fellow content creators, namely Imane “Pokimane” Anys, 100 Thieves co-owner Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter, and Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren just to name a few.
Despite the addition of streamer powerhouses such as the likes of LilyPichu, Valkyrae, Ludwig, and even creators similar to Pokimane who is streaming on both sites — YouTube Gaming is still trailing behind Twitch as both sites compete against one another.
LilyPichu announces deal with YouTube Gaming
Prior to announcing the new streaming deal with YouTube Gaming, LilyPichu shared last month that it was her 10th year of partnership with Twitch.
In less than two weeks, in a heartwarming and playful announcement video, LilyPichu had two of her two Pomeranians named Temmie and DaVinky make the big decision for her, to pick either a red or purple button representing the two platforms. Eventually, she revealed the final call to move to YouTube, saying “I had so much fun on twitch”.
The 30-year-old is a variety streamer, playing and airing various different video game titles from Riot Games’ League of Legends, VALORANT to Twitch’s casual stream category Just Chatting.
According to Stream Charts, in the last 30 days, the streamer had a total of 72 hours and 5 minutes of airtime with VALORANT as the most-watched title and highest gained followers. Both LoL and Just Chatting followed in second, and third, respectively.
She is also a voice actor, most recently known for lending her voice to the character of Sayu in the English version of miHoYo’s Genshin Impact.
Currently, LilyPichu has 2.5 million followers on Twitch and is only a few numbers away from hitting 3 million on YouTube, racking 2.95 million current subscribers count on the platform.
Aside from live streaming, the now YouTube Gaming content creator is a member of OfflineTV, a Los Angeles-based online social entertainment group of content creators, which members include Pokimane and Canadian YouTuber Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang.
YouTube Gaming’s performance, controversy
LilyPichu is the most recent Twitch streamer who moved to YouTube, joining the likes of Valkyrae, Ludwig, Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, Tim “TimTheTatman” Betar, and more. Prior to LilyPichu was her regular collaborator, Sykkuno who announced his move to the popular video-sharing site in May.
Despite quite a number of streamers flocking to YouTube, the site has been called out for not taking care of its content creators. The complaint was brought into the spotlight in May this year by Herschel “Guy” Beahm IV or Dr Disrespect, who had moved to YouTube following his now-resolved legal dispute with Twitch. Aside from that, YouTube’s substantial investment in new streamers is unable to release the site from its low market share.
According to a report by Cloutboost published in February this year, as gaming content and gaming streaming platform grew tremendously throughout the year, Twitch dominated 70.5 percent of the video game streaming market with a whopping 5.79 billion total hours watched. Additionally, the site has 9.2 million active streamers, 7 million of which go live every month.
YouTube Gaming, on the other hand, is trailing behind Facebook Gaming in total hours watched. YouTube only made 13.8 percent behind Facebook’s 15.7 percent. Despite these, YouTube’s 1.13 billion hours watched is not a laughing stock still.
