
Ludwig announced $1 Million Smash Bros Tournament after Youtube move
When it comes to fighting game pros, Ludwig has become one of the most recognisable out there. The player has achieved a huge following thanks to his online content. He’s just announced that he’s taking this to the next level over the next few months though. This is going to involve a Ludwig Smash Bros tournament with a huge prize pool of $1 million. Alongside that though, the streamer has just taken his content over to YouTube exclusively. Only the biggest streamers can successfully pull off these types of power moves. This is what happened with the Ludwig YouTube move.

IG | ludwigahgren
Ludwig moves to Youtube
Ludwig has become the latest streamer to move entirely over to YouTube rather than Twitch. The streamer has been rising in notoriety lately and achieved a significant breakthrough earlier this year. The streamer pulled a 31-day long full-time stream, with only short breaks taken when others stepped in for him. The net result of this streamathon was beating out Ninja’s subscriber record on the platform. After beating Ninja’s record, it’s only really fitting that he partially repeats Ninja’s fallout with Twitch too.
The streamer has signed an exclusivity deal with YouTube, moving only to YouTube gaming form the end of November. There were a few factors behind this move. The financial incentive of signing exclusivity deals can’t be ignored and it seems Twitch as the market leader isn’t willing to go to these prices. Beyond that though, Ludwig expressed his frustration with Twitch and how it treats creators.
Explaining the reasoning behind the move, Ludwig talked about more than just his fee for signing. He specifically talked about how hard YouTube was willing to work to cultivate their streamers, compared with Twitch’s complacency. Ludwig talked about going directly to Twitch to discuss a different offer, but basically getting nothing in return. YouTube on the other hand helped to arrange a schedule that supported streaming fewer hours, addressing the burnout problems that have haunted streamers for a long time now.
Twitch has complete market dominance in streaming, so these attitudes aren’t a surprise. However, if they continue to haemorrhage big-name streamers like with the Ludwig YouTube move, they might well lose that dominance.
Ludwig announces Smash Bros Tournament
Alongside the Ludwig YouTube move cementing him as a big name in streaming, Ludwig has announced a showstopping Smash Bros tournament. Coming just a little after Nintendo ended the world of competitive Smash, Ludwig seems to have set out to make their efforts look less impressive. While discussing the Ludwig YouTube move on the Stanz Show, he mentioned the tournament he’s planning on holding in 2022. This event is going to feature a $1 million prize pool, with events for both Ultimate and Melee taking place. Smash is one of the top fighting games, but prize pools like this are still big news for the game.
This tournament played back into his YouTube move too. With a full staff of ten to support, Ludwig talked about not being able to simply throw that money at a tournament on Twitch. Especially for a game like Smash Bros that has a delicate history of intervention preventing decent sponsorship. YouTube’s efforts to support him should make more of this possible. Between the tournament and his previous subathon, Ludwig has quickly made a name for himself by being willing to pull off bigger events and stunts to keep fans entertained. With YouTube behind it instead of Twitch, it’ll be interesting to see what big ideas he pulls out next.