Why is Pokimane leaving Twitch?

Pokimane has spoken about her decision to leave Twitch, calling the platform “messy” and confirming that she was not renewing her contract.

Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys was the most popular female streamer on the site and had been on Twitch for more than 10 years.

First, Pokimane hinted that she was leaving the site on Twitter/X, before confirming the development in an episode of her podcast.

She said: “If you see Twitch and streaming nowadays, it’s really almost nothing like how it was back then. Or frankly, I feel like it has regressed a lot. And I think that’s the biggest reason why I have a hard time wanting to devote all of my time and all of my energy to just streaming.”

“I personally am done with Twitch’s messy behavior in the sense that I’m not done with Twitch, but I’m done with, like, being emotionally invested in the changes that this company is doing,” Pokimane went on to say, referencing the topless meta and subsequent changes to nudity policy Twitch announced last year.

Pokimane

The streamer also took issue with the time Twitch take to enforce bans, saying that “even when something becomes evidently clear that it is wrong, it still takes them a hot ass minute to do anything about it. You have people with incredible viewership getting declined partnership over and over and over and over and over”.

She finished by saying: “So moving forward, I’m going to try streaming on other platforms. How exciting. I’m going to try streaming on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, and now I’m just going to have fun. I just want to be able to partake in different platforms and things either as I see fit or as I find excitement in doing it.”

Pokimane previously spoke on the future of streaming after Twitch changed its branded content guidelines and faced immediate pushback from content creators back in the summer of 2023.

The changes impacted how users could advertise sponsorships as well as banning them from multi-streaming to “Twitch-like” platforms.

Just a day later, Twitch revealed that they were removing the new guidelines after receiving widespread criticism.

Speaking about the direction streaming could take in future, and urged users to pursue new routes to get what they deserve for their content.

“I feel like because content creation is becoming so saturated [and] we often have trouble relying on the platforms we use, the future is direct to consumer paid content (patreon, onlypans, consumer goods, etc),” Pokimane wrote on Twitter/X.

“Social media platforms will obviously always be used, but I think people will start looking at them as tools to gain exposure instead of being the way to make money,” the streamer went on to say.

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings