Summit1g is the most popular streamer who has not yet announced any sort of exclusive streaming rights deals with a platform like Twitch, Mixer, or YouTube following the big moves by Ninja and shroud last year.
Despite getting numerous requests from subscribers and donors on his stream to talk about a potential move, Summit has been tight-lipped thus far. And last night, he finally took a moment to explain to his audience why that’s the case.
“Listen, all you have to do for two seconds is put yourself in my shoes,” Summit said. “If there was potentially a deal between multiple platforms, why would I ever, ever, ever respond to it and confirm anything in a donation rather than announce something.”
It’s been clear for a while now that Summit has something in the works in terms of a platform deal, but all he ever says about it is that his fans need to just wait it out. He tells his viewers that they’ll know what his plans are when he’s ready to officially announce them.
“Especially if a deal hasn’t been made or hasn’t been done and I was like, ‘yeah, I’m going to Mixer’ or ‘no, I’m staying on Twitch,” he said. “Then Twitch is like ‘the deal’s not done yet,’ and they look at me like ‘oh, shit, we don’t have to pay this motherfucker very much now. We know he’s staying.’”
Summit admitted that even giving the response that he gave was perhaps giving his fans too much information. But he’s been getting so many questions lately about where he’ll be streaming for the foreseeable future that it seems like it’s starting to get to him a little bit.
“I don’t understand why so many people keep asking me,” he said. “It just doesn’t make any sense to ever answer.”
Summit is the biggest fish left unsigned since Ninja made waves with his decision to move to Mixer from Twitch. Shortly after the crazy-haired Fortnite player’s exodus last year, shroud announced in the fall that he too would be streaming exclusively on Mixer.
Since that point, several streamers have announced deals on Facebook and YouTube, like Disguised Toast and CouRage, respectively. At the same time, content creators like TimTheTatman, DrLupo, Pokimane, and Dr Disrespect all signed deals to stay on Twitch.
With more than 92 million hours watched on Twitch in the past 365 days, Summit1g is the most-watched content creator on the platform over that period of time, according to Twitch statistics website SullyGnome.
In addition to his massive hours watched totals, his success hasn’t been tied to one particular game. In fact, he has a track record of giving less popular categories, like Grand Theft Auto roleplay and Sea of Thieves, a significant bump in viewership.
Summit is represented by the esports talent agency Loaded that’s helped bring payouts to Ninja, shroud, TimTheTatman, and Lirik. Though the initial moves by Ninja and shroud suggested that the agency could be swaying content creators away from Twitch, the decision by others later to stay on the platform make it harder to gauge who Summit’s deal will be with.
With Summit being one of the most significant final pieces in the chess match between platforms like Twitch and Mixer, the relaxed former CS:GO player has substantial leverage over the platforms looking to court him—and he’s valiantly attempting to maintain that by deflecting questions on stream.
Though he has not yet told anyone when exactly he’ll be making a decision, some answers that Summit has given people on stream regarding his future indicate that an announcement will come sooner rather than later.
Just a few weeks ago when asked about his thoughts regarding certain streaming platforms, Summit told his viewers to come back to him with the same questions in about a month or so for answers.
It’s not quite time yet, but with each passing day, we’re a little bit closer to perhaps the biggest available streaming free agent finally signing a deal with a platform.
