At the height of streaming’s exclusivity wars earlier this decade, stream queen Pokimane had the chance to make “life-changing” money if she dumped Twitch for YouTube—but loyalty and her “idiotic” honesty saw her turn down the cash.
Pokimane, who’s no longer exclusivity signed to Twitch anyway, opened up on YouTube’s hardline recruitment drive on her Sweet ‘n’ Sour podcast: Right when the Google-owned platform was looking to draw title names away from Twitch, the company’s negotiating squad approached Pokimane to open conversations. It started with a “very big offer” the 28-year-old described as life-changing money; notable considering she’s worth close to $25 million.
Only, Pokimane had a loyalty to Twitch she really wanted to honor, so she asked her agent to speak to the Amazon streaming brand and gauge their interest in retaining her. Things went poorly to begin with, with Twitch’s bargaining group coming in with a deal with half as much. It was enough to nearly turn Pokimane’s head the other way.
Still wanting to stay on Twitch over leaving the page where she’d built a multi-million fan following, Pokimane had her manager get the contact details for a C-level executive. She laid everything out for that company big-wig—and they were happy to match.
That’s when Pokimane got the biggest offer of all: YouTube heard she was staying and upped its bid. The then mid-20s Pokimane, who’d already shook hands with the Twitch bosses, turned the mega offer down to “stay honest.” “I’m kind of an idiot maybe, because I was like ‘No, no, no. I can’t. I gave them my word,’” the streaming queen said. “I had like, a fixation on honesty… I passed up so much money because I gave someone my word.”
Even worse, she added, the very last YouTube deal promised so much money even she was shocked. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to see money like that in my life.”
What would sting the most for Pokimane is after all that loyalty and honesty with Twitch, she’s now walked away from the Amazon site just a little over two years later. She still semi-regularly appears in broadcasts there to play games and speak to her 9.3 million followers, but the star didn’t extend any deals after her two years were up.
Other Twitch superstars that did defect to Youtube, including TimTheTatman and Dr Lupo, have now also returned to their original stream pages after their big-money deals expired.
Pokimane now remains free from any exclusivity bargains and is mostly focused on YouTube lifestyle vlogs; a decision the 28-year-old made because she thinks Twitch’s culture is sliding too far into “manosphere red pill bullshit.”
“Twitch and streaming and the surrounding communities, that is, to me, not the sole representation of gaming,” she said at the time. “That becomes very clear once you go to YouTube and see all these amazing Let’s Plays or other livestreamers. Or you go to TikTok and you see so much cute, cozy gaming content, or other kinds. Like, it seems like there’s this plethora of people who have similar interests as me and they’re just not all on Twitch.”
Closer to home, Pokimane recently faced “trouble in paradise” as legal issues forced her to make team changes after several blowups. The stream queen also had to fire an employee after discovering he “wouldn’t stop touching himself” while editing her videos.
