Valkyrae is returning to Twitch in January 2025
31 December 2024
Rachell Marie Hofstetter, AKA Valkyrae and one of the most-watched female streamers in the world, signed an exclusive contract with Youtube back in 2020. Now, almost five years later, she is returning to Youtube. That’s what Valkyrae herself announced recently on her own X account. She did not make any real reference to the possibility of streaming on multiple platforms yet, though it could very well be on the cards for the American streamer in the near future. In any case, it looks like the world of international esports is gearing up for big news right off the bat in 2025.
Exclusivity deal
Like a host of other well-known streamers including Destiny, Trainwreck and Adin Ross, Valkyrae decided to leave Twitch in 2020, due to the platform’s increasingly stricter and more abundant rules. Subsequently, Valkyrae opted to join Youtube over Kick and she signed an exclusivity agreement with the Google-owned streaming service. At the time, she simply felt that Youtube fit her personal and professional goals the best.
“There are quite a few reasons for switching”, Valkyrae explained back in 2020, “Obviously financial stability for not only myself, but my family. I no longer have to worry about numbers. I can truly focus on making content that I’m proud of and that people would enjoy. I also now have the freedom to have time to make other types of content besides just focusing on gaming. I want to expand my brand and I feel that being on YouTube will allow me to do so. The YouTube team also is very attentive, supportive, and listens to my feedback. I’m excited to be working with them to improve the YouTube streaming website as a whole.”
Return to Youtube in January
Now, five years after signing with Youtube, Valkyrae’s contract with the platform has come to an end and will not be extended. Therefore, on Wednesday January 8th, she will stream on Twitch for the first time since signing her now-expired deal with Youtube. What the stream will be about is still a mystery, but it seems likely that Valkyrae will elaborate further on her decision to leave Youtube and the possibility of going multi-platform in 2025. The streamer herself has not addressed this last topic yet as such, though she did react to a tweet from fellow streamer Ludwig, who asked her why she is not multi-streaming yet. Her response was brief and possibly a tease, as she tweeted back “What’s that?”, followed by a smiley face emoji.
“After 3 contracts and 5 years later, I’ve officially completed my last contract streaming exclusively on YouTube”, writes Valkyrae on her X account, “I’ll be doing my first stream on Twitch on my birthday, January 8th! Celebrating 10 years of streaming as well as a special marathon announcement. See you then!”
If you want to hear more about Valkyrae’s decision to return to Twitch from the streamer herself, you can also check out this recent episode of “Press ESC”, the podcast she records with Alythuh.