Twitch Streamer Pokimane announced in a stream today that she is renewing her exclusivity deal with the Twitch.tv platform. In the announcement the streamer revealed that she will be holding a giveaway for a Tesla to commemorate the decision.
At the end of January Pokimane’s previous exclusivity deal with Twitch ended and the streamer posted on social media about beginning the “next chapter”. This prompted some speculation about the possibility of Pokimane changing platforms and signing an exclusivity deal with YouTube. However, it is more likely that Pokimane used the threat of a move to YouTube as a negotiation ploy to leverage a more profitable deal in the renewal. The streamer has built up her audience through Twitch, and typically streamers that switch away from the platforms where they build their audience experience a drop in viewership. For this reason it is highly unlikely that Pokimane would change platforms unless YouTube made a offer that paid significantly more than Twitch to compensate for moving to a streaming platform that is much less popular.
The timing of the expiration of Pokimane’s previous exclusivity deal with Twitch lines up with her most recent controversies where the streamer received a ban for streaming full episodes of TV, shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, to her audience and her recent beefs with streamers Jidion and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. It is possible that the threat of Pokimane’s potential departure from the platform influenced Twitch’s decision to upgrade Jidion’s 14-day suspension to a permanent ban after Pokimane went on her stream to question Twitch’s handing out a two-week ban and suggest that they shouldn’t have people like Jidion on the platform. The fallout from The Jidion incident has caused some damage to the streamer who is already facing a decline in reputation due to her continued controversies particularly her attempts to destroy smaller content creators that criticize her. Pokeimane made up with Jidion and featured him in a stream recently in an attempt to repair her image.
To many Tesla giveaway appears to be yet another publicity stunt from the streamer attempting to rehabilitate her image after fueling a drama storm and being especially vitriolic and toxic towards other creators and the gaming community at large. It remains to be seen how much good will this giveaway will restore for the creator.
Originally published at http://gametama.net on February 8, 2022.
