Ali Kabbani, who is known as Myth online, is the next Twitch streamer to leave the platform for an exclusive deal with YouTube. Myth announced his decision to stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming in, naturally, a YouTube video.
If you think you’ve heard this story before, it’s because you had. Myth is one of many former Twitch streamers who have moved away from the platform over the past few years — Lily Ki, also known as LilyPichu, and Sykkuno both made the move over the past few months.
“Decisions have made me who I am, and this is my decision,” Myth said in the announcement video. YouTube streams are expected to begin Tuesday. Throughout the video, Myth contemplates the decisions he’s made in his life: from quitting professional Fortnite for streaming and choosing to play video games professionally. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Myth said he’s switching to YouTube for something “more entertainment focused.”
“I love games — it’s never going to change,” Myth said. “But I think that shift and focus about it not just being strictly about winning games anymore has driven me to feel like YouTube was the right place.”
He plans to stream and post produced videos on his YouTube channel, which he initially started in 2013. Myth gained popularity for streaming Fortnite on Twitch in 2017, and later played professionally for TSM. In 2021, Myth left TSM but continued to stream on the platform, where he was often one of Twitch’s most-watched streamers. Myth has more than 4.5 million subscribers on YouTube.
A Bloomberg report from April suggested Twitch was considering a change to how it pays its biggest streamers in an effort to increase profit, while The Washington Post reported in 2021 that Twitch may no longer offer the huge contracts it once did. Neither Myth nor other streamers moving to YouTube commented on either company’s pay structures. Twitch, for its part, still leads industry as the top livestreaming service, but YouTube has continued to be successful in luring big names away.
