“I didn't know it was this easy”

LetsHugo became famous with Minecraft, but now mainly offers Just Chatting on Twitch. He now realizes that playing games on YouTube pays off.

What is the bar about? LetsHugo is a German-speaking streaming company from Luxembourg that saw rapid growth between 2022 and 2023. In a recent broadcast, he showed how much he earns from his YouTube gaming channel.

The streamer explains that he hasn't been very active on his channel for gaming content yet. Looking back, he couldn't understand it because it was 'free money'. Videos with more than 170,000 views generated between 600 and 700 euros. A video with 47,000 views in which LetsHugo is insulted by Trymacs has generated at least €183.

Why is this special to him? The videos are not produced specifically for YouTube, but are excerpts from its streams. They're put together by an editor and then posted to YouTube – so you can reuse the same content and get twice the money with relatively little effort.

What's especially interesting for LetsHugo is that his gaming videos almost seem to be more lucrative than the videos on his main channel, even though he puts a lot of effort into them. The presenter says he feels really “robbed”. He didn't realize how easy it was to make money this way.

He always believed that he had to create “the best video in the world.” He knows how important gaming videos are from fellow Twitch streamer Papaplatte: LetsHugo organized the “XXL Olympics” with him. Papaplatte turned it into a two-and-a-half-hour video that received 1.6 million views and earned him more than €21,000.

The Luxembourgian is still a long way from achieving those numbers, but seems determined to get a piece of the gaming pie.

Chat-only rules on Twitch

Why is this interesting? Many Twitch streamers currently have the opposite experience: gaming just isn't worth it for a lot of people. Chat only is the most viewed category in recent years (via Solly gnome). Streamers use them to show reactions, interact with their fans, or for formats like opening gifts from viewers.

Even Papaplatte, one of Germany's most popular streamers on Twitch, reported that many of his colleagues were completely intimidated by the game show. Babablat says that once they go from just chatting to a game, they will lose viewers.

Many creators have incorporated “Just Chat” into their streams and chat with viewers for a period of time before the game starts. Just Chatting's share seems to be steadily increasing in recent years:

• In 2019, the first full year for this category, Asmongold showed a 0.6% share of just chat and a 91.9% share of World of Warcraft. Five years later, he is broadcasting on his second account, with Just Chatting making up nearly 60% of his content (via Twitchtracker).
• As for Gronkh, Just Chatting accounted for just over 25% of airtime in 2019, and over 45% in 2023. This year he seems to be really enjoying gaming again with solid survival titles like Palworld and Enshrouded. Just Chatting's share is 36% for 2024 so far (via Twitchtracker).
• Jynxzi is currently the most popular streamer on Twitch, although his content is completely against the grain: he almost exclusively features the shooter Rainbow Six Siege. In 2019, he wasn't on Just Chatting at all, but this year the category made up 11% of his streams (via TwitchTracker).

Even if the examples mentioned are just samples, there is still a trend towards more just chatting. LetsHugo itself only featured Minecraft in 2019. The block game made up 91% of its broadcast time. However, in 2024, he spent 47% of his time just chatting, followed by more than 16% of his time in real life (via Twitchtracker). Now he's celebrating his gaming success – but on a completely different platform.

The concept of uploading streaming clips to YouTube and tapping them twice has become well established in recent years. Because YouTube is generally considered the most profitable platform. However, hard-produced videos are not necessarily rewarded by the algorithm. That's why many big YouTubers are moving to Twitch now.