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Sykkuno, one of Twitch’s top streamers, is known for his healthy demeanor and for playing games like Between us and GTA Online, left Amazon’s platform for YouTube Gaming red pastures this month. The move shocked the live stream because Sykkuno was something of a familiar name on Twitch, boasting four million followers and a total of 103 million views since becoming a more consistent streamer in April 2019. However, the change made sense to him because, as he revealed during his first live stream on YouTube Gaming, his Google-owned platform offered him a slightly better offer and Twitch gave its name to a rather unfortunate spelling mistake in an official email.
You may not have heard of him, but Sykkuno has been on YouTube for years. In fact, an old account of can be traced to April 2006, where it uploaded Legion of Legends and Minecraft content before you go to its current channel, which now has 2.75 million subscribers, in September 2011. While Sykkuno spent much of his early YouTube career, he did not become known as a streamer until April 2019, when he began broadcasting regularly on Twitch he ‘d was created years ago. In August 2020 he joined a streamers collective called Offline TVwhich includes other online personalities such as DisguisedToast and LilyPichu, and although he left the team a few months later in November, continued to see rapid growth. Now, with four million followers on Twitch, Sykkuno has left Amazon’s platform because he believes he will be “much, much happier” on YouTube.
After announcing the news of his move on YouTube on social media, Sykkuno came out live on May 3rd to discuss the rationale behind the switch. It was a multifaceted explanation given by the negotiation of his contract with Twitch. He said he went to the company asking for a better deal because Twitch’s initial offer was “just plain bad”, although he did not provide details. Twitch came back with what Sykkuno called a “very, very good offer”, which almost convinced him to stay as it was “quite dead” even with YouTube. He even said that if Twitch’s offer was “a little worse”, it would have remained on the platform.
And yet, he did not. In the end, YouTube made the best offer, but that was not the only deciding factor. What boosted the traffic, apart from the increase in money offered by YouTube, was a strange email Sykkuno received from Twitch.
After sharing some statistics on his performance on Twitch — he was the 28th highest-grossing and 45th most-followed follower of all time — he emailed the company an on-screen e-mail showing an obvious representative. Twitch to spell name as “Sukkuno”. You can almost feel the embarrassment coming from Sykkuno as he was discussing the email. He was so upset that he texted people asking if it was a phishing scam because he could not believe Twitch would do such a thing in his name.
“Maybe I’m too big or something, but I’m shocked,” Sykkuno said during the live stream. “I thought I was being cheated. I was afraid to click on this email because I was saying, “Am I going to catch a virus?”
There was some leniency, with Sykkuno joking a bit about the unfortunate misspelling, but he ended the section by expressing how invaluable Twitch made him feel. In particular, Sykkuno’s move comes during the Asia-Pacific Heritage Month, during which Twitch is supposed to “We celebrate and recognize” the huge impact that AAPI streamers had, not only on Twitch but also on the gaming culture as a whole. Sykkuno is an American of Chinese and Vietnamese descent and the spelling of his name, even if it is not his real name, seems quite careless. No wonder he felt he was not appreciated, especially as Anti-Asian sentiment is growing worldwide but especially in the US due to the ongoing pandemic.
Kotaku has contacted Sykkuno and Twitch for comment.
