Ludwig’s Company was a Financial Nightmare
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ม.ค. 2025
- Ludwig sits down and has a one to one with chat about why OffBrand, the company he founded, closed its production arm, the mismanagement of funds (to the tune of 3 million dollars), and the future of his streaming career.
Streamed live on Dec 14, 2024
Main channel: @ludwig
You can watch the full VOD here: / 2327077046
Outro song: • KUWAGO - Let's start!
#ludwig #twitch #ludwin
Its such a shame cause Ludwig’s events are the coolest thing that separated him from other creators. Chessboxing, Streamer Games, Worlds Greatest Gamer, and Unpaid Intern. Itll be so sad if we stop getting things like this
i think he can keep doing big events, assuming he can his usual sponsor support. And of course his community continues to support him like they've done on YT, back on twitch.
He said he's still gonna do the events, just gonna do it with contractors
If I'm going to be honest he just needs to advertise or broadcast it better, because a lot of these big events I had no clue about until they were over. And it doesn't help that it's the same people involved that I'll only watch through lud content so I'll never hear them say, yo hey check me out next week
@@Tehgamescrew how do you advertise or broadcast it better? He already would advertise these events on his platforms, on Offbrands platforms, he would advertise the people that would be joining the event as soon as they were confirmed, he would try to get big sponsors for the event, and would broadcast most of the recent ones on both TH-cam and Twitch, he would even sell in person tickets for most of them, how do you go bigger from there?
@@MyNameIsRow01 i know it's hard to invite people and get them to do anything but a greater scope of creators I think would help it's just too high budget
So many people are still misunderstanding what Lud's saying. Here's a breakdown:
Ludwig believes that the death of Offbrand Productions is the result of him not being a large enough streamer. He mentions he now has a chip on his shoulder that he is constantly aware of.
He believes the best way to ensure the livelihoods of the rest of his employees, as well as for any future endeavors, is to pursue growth as a streamer.
Ludwig believes that streaming exclusively on Twitch is the optimal way to reach as many new people as possible. There are two major supporting ideas for this:
1. Gaining traction on Twitch is a snowball. The rich get richer, if you will. If he streams on Twitch and is already decently popular, he is guaranteed to become more popular. This is in contrast to TH-cam, where his streams reach next to no new people on average.
2. If he multistreams, some people that would have followed him to Twitch would instead stay on TH-cam. Even if he's only losing out on a few hundred viewers, he has been so burned by the closure of Offbrand Productions that he is not willing to take a chance in directly pursuing growth. The safest bet to take is to stream exclusively on Twitch.
He is still down to pursue multistreaming in the future if he sees for himself that he is not experiencing the growth he expects, or for some other reason that may come up. He only believes this is the best decision in this moment in support of the goal of recognizing his responsibility to pay the people that work for him and ensure they have a future working for him
@@jurb417 I have seen it, Charlie does not disprove the second point. Charlie's video is focused on revenue, while Ludwig's reasoning is based on outreach. Ludwig isn't trying to make the most money possible, he is trying to grow as much as possible. He believes that the best way to pursue earning more money is to grow himself as a streamer, and he belives that prioritizing his growth via streaming solely on Twitch would be more valuable than multistreaming
Charlie makes the point that TH-cam generates significantly less revenue while the stream is live. He makes the point that stream VoDs perform extremely well and gain a lot of extra money. Ludwig is honoring both of these points by choosing to upload his VoDs to his Ludwig VoDs channel. He believes that this is just as good as leaving the VoDs up after a TH-cam stream. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but the logic is sound and this is his own logic
I mean. A business relying on your stream..
So many other factors. This business was fucked
@@PneumaAsh You said Ludwig was not trying to make the most money possible but then go on to say he is focusing on growth as the best way to earn more money. You truly have no idea what you're talking about do you...
@dopiercomic4106 No, it's a matter of intent
The intention is to grow
He will make more money as a side effect, yes, but his current intention is not to make more money
Ludwig touches on the fact that his decision will cause an increase in revenue because of the chip of his shoulder. With one company failure under his belt, he feels more responsible to his employees than ever
The intention is to grow. This is because his failure to Offbrand Productions, in his mind, is solely down to him not being a big enough streamer. As a side effect of pursuing growth, he will make more money, which will fulfill his responsibilities, which ties into his failed responsibility, which is why it matters enough to mention
@@dopiercomic4106 Sorry, I ended up saying the same thing in two different ways
I like how he mentions unpaid intern at the beginning and then doesn't talk about it. I love unpaid intern. it's my favorite ludwig content ever.
Welp is deff 100000% gone he said it was too expensive
its just a copy of taskmaster uk, just watch that instead way better
@@AvANerd I mainly watched it for the dynamic between the creators and stanz
@@AvANerd Thats like saying that kamen raider is better than power rangers. Its not. Its just not. Miost people on task master have half the charisma of an egg let alone a streamer that kind of does things charismatically.
seems like they can do the show if they get good sponsors like streamer games/awards.
It's crazy that you can see the real Ludwig coming out between the streamer voice bits, I feel bad because this was clearly his passion project, and it seems to have really hit him hard, especially with this coming during his big TH-cam or Twitch decision, which could affect his ability to do any events in the future
I don’t think we ever see the real Ludwig anymore. He’s always been very self-aware but he has now become very competent in showing us exactly what he wants to / doesn’t want to
@@Vincust Agreed. Streamers aren't real.
@@rij3142 streamers are real people, they just have more money than us, and are expected to make zero mistakes, and be an entertainer 24/7
@@Vincust yes, but, even his friends say that they don’t see that side of him very often anymore, but you can definitely still see parts of it during streams that aren’t his, or when he’s talking about something very close to him, like when his friends are in serious drama, or when his business shuts down, he’s not an emotionless robot like people believe most streamers are
I didn't hear about World's Greatest until it was almost done, I heard about League Week a month out. It's not (just) an events issue, it's also an advertising issue
Constantly and then he will argue with chat saying that advertising wasn’t the issue and that they advertised in a good way.
I only learned that World’s Greatest Gamer happened from this video. Definitely something I would have watched live if I’d known and I feel like I’m relatively in touch with what’s happening (I watch part or all of most streams or VODs, all of the Mogul Moves videos, I’m part of the discord, etc.)
100%
@@beccaranI'm in none of those things and I heard about worlds greatest from other streamers plus I saw clips of him talking about it and I don't watch him 😅
@@ast5578 sounds like the promo may have been misdirected 😅
I think it was a really cool idea, but they kind of built around Ludwig's big events which wasn't necessarily sustainable. Too many employees, not enough interest for large events. I think if they had built Offbrand up more slowly, developed more creator interest in events, then it might have been able to stick around longer. Unfortunately a lot of good employees were let go and Ludwig scooped them up. I'm sure it made a great team, but every person on the payroll is basically another event you have to host that year to afford them.
Ludwig bet on a vision of what streaming was going to be that reflected his passion for events. But the market went a different direction. Really just a normal story of a business that didn’t work out, but always sad when the people working on it had genuine passion for what they were doing.
Point 3 (the snowball effect and the subsequent discussion about peak performance) was the only argument that's made sense to me regarding multistreaming so far, and it made a *lot* of sense.
Glad to hear he's planning to upload VODs at a good pace (I also watch SmallAnt primarily through VODs and...the struggle is real).
i really love how open and honest ludwig is. not a lot of people like that nowadays.
Streamed events do feel too long for me in general, the only ones I watch live are unpaid intern, fast 50, and some Rivals. Unpaid intern being basically a youtube video anyways, but they were paced better than the youtube edit. And the other 2 being a bunch of segments and matches that I can just peek into
What we learned today?
TH-cam viewers have attention and twitch viewers are second monitor consumers.
Just an old TH-cam frog here. Old as in 33 with a business degree. Sounds like you def made the right call with switching back over to twitch to just upload VODs to TH-cam.
And having a channel for condensed/segmented portions of VODs. Which is this clips channel? Yah that’s what I typically watch, for what it’s worth.
Best of luck! Let past failures drive you!
Spot on!
This isn't his official clips channel
Trash Taste had that huge booth at Anime Expo the one year and they said they lost a shit ton of money on that so ya makes sense why people aren't doing events anymore. That said Cyclonthon is amazing and Connor deserves all the love. Sorry to hear about Offbrand Lud.
i dont know what they've said but their AX booths are definitely overkill in size when they're just selling merch.
I think personally that the issue isn’t not enough events but as he said he needs 2 huge events a month. I would say maybe 4 smaller events a month could have works with the occasional huge event.
They could have expanded to big too fast as well.
But I don’t know everything behind the scenes but that’s my thought.
It also seems to have been completely mismanaged. Like missing tax payments to the amount of 3 mil isnt just events not being big enough. The company losing so much money that it had to fold while having an extra 3 mil to operate is crazy. Some people just are cut out to run a huge business and Lud seems to be that type of person.
Part of Ludwig's point is that streamers aren't doing many events in the first place, let alone needing to worry about prioritizing smaller versus larger events
16:34 Is the big money reason 18:29 he mentioned 3mil 21:50 why no multi streaming
Should have had a separate channel for Offbrand to post Behind the Scenes videos for extra revenue
Gotta say, Ludwig does things in the hardest way possible. He made Otto create something that combines both chats? There are already existing sites that DO THAT FOR YOU.
Another time he did this was when he said “you have to schedule TH-cam streams” no you don’t, there are work around for that too.
And then he found out after it was TOS lol
Having someone who works for him create a little tool isn't a bad or a hard thing? It likely took Otto < a day and it means Ludwig doesn't have to authenticate on a random 3rd party site with his YT & TTV
@@4Seraph Totally, but Lud often complains about things that already exist, I remember for months he complained about TH-cam not having “automatic thumbnails” for live streams and they literally had them the whole time.
This is why you don't operate a business unless you actually know how to operate and grow it.
Totally unrelated to the clip entirely, it's super funny that he's reacting to his own video while wearing the same shirt. Connor has infected him with 1 shirt syndrome.
The video was filmed before the stream
Please multistream I hate twitch so much. TH-cam is so much better for the viewers
He literally explained the reasons in the video
@ I know
@@matthewtench1841 imo say he has a good reason. Can't really go off feeling in this situation. Yes i do wish he stayed to TH-cam tho cause twitch Mobile sucks
While big events sound like an amazing idea, most people don't have the time, attention span, patience, or prolonged interest in a stream that goes on for hours and hours. I rarely ever watch Twitch, or live-streams in general, cuz I prefer VODs or just medium to long-form content on YT. I will watch a whole stream's worth of VODS, where each segment is its' own video, so it feels more focused.
Someone already mentioned this but, let the failure be a driving factor in your future success! Learn and grow (probably not taller, but at least more famous), and keep making cool things that make thousands across the planet have moments of joy, excitement and laughter.
37:00 makes sense as two things can happen when changing stream to the next
1. The viewer sees another get interested in another video from a thumbnail
2. They just don't want to go back to there TH-cam tab and continue the stream and take there time away from whatever they were doing
look i have no problem with ludwig, but he criticizes companies for being anti consumer like nintendo over... modding the game, or how panda 'killed' smash world tour, and proceeds to hsot a tournament the same day as panda to undermine them.
i think this shows ludwig has no idea what he is talkign about when it comes to companies. the fact he capsized his own company should put into perspective why exactly companies are so 'anti consumer'.
The twitch experience is so dog shit I have definitely watched less and less and I hate the "fractured community" argument, it's so stupid. I will not watch on twitch.
I also love the youtube streamers talking about how youtube streaming hasn't really improved anything, as a viewer, it feels like twitch has gotten actively worse with the app changes.
.
My sibling in christ just use a twitch prime
Have you ever used Twitch on Mobile?
Twitch is absolute trash but i understand where ludwig is coming from.
@@504branden "yeah so uhhh you can only have an actual watchable viewing experience for one streamer at a time without spending money. just use your prime" my guy the average viewer must watch more than one streamer
@@zacharybroussard3765 They probably don't watch more than one streamer on twitch because if they did they wouldn't be so incessant about this argument. At that point just use the twitch prime, eat the ads, or stop watching because the argument is getting old.
I am so behind on streams so this doesn’t effect me. I am a vod vrog
hire a collection company on unpaid revenue/invoices
I can't believe Mr. Green would do this again
Me watching Ludwig and conner /cdawgva playing league
Me watching this video
Wait ludwig owns a company
Lud or Offbrands financial team are fools for letting this happen
Offbrand didn’t even have a financial team. Ludwig was so delusional and egotistical he thought he could do it himself. Look at where that ended up
you need to hire decent ppl and then sue
any accountant can find out what happened
If he had an accountant/a good accountant to begin with he may not be in this situation.
Curious how Devin Nash is gonna cover this
Dude had two cpas working for him. Aiden doing great
Wont go to twitch and dont need a chat but will mis te streams
Could I ask why you won’t I’m just wondering
@@spaztikcuk5871because it is a bad platform
@@spaztikcuk5871I’m in the same boat, I just can’t deal with the sheer number of ads on Twitch lately. The prime sub only cuts ads for one streamer and there are times where I’ll get 9+ pre roll ads alone when I open a Twitch stream. Then there are frequent long mid roll ads, typically 3-4, where you’ll miss large chunks of the stream and can’t rewind to watch them until the VOD is available. I can’t financially justify tons of monthly subs to channels. I’m also exclusively a mobile viewer and the TH-cam app is functionally better than the Twitch app. Being able to rewind or pick up where you left off during a livestream on TH-cam is super helpful.
ads are annoying and they've become increasingly present, just got tired of having to find a new adblock solution every few weeks just so my LIVE stream wasn't inundated with ads
@@spaztikcuk5871 Too many ads, the media player is awful (can't rewind), sometimes I'll watch 20-30 minutes of the stream and then just jump right back into it later on without having to find the exact moment I was watching. Plus getting tired of using too many platforms.
I liked Beerio Kart a lot
Twitch is just endless commercials. Nice knowing ya
i dont like this guys chat i think
This is just like dark souls
Aka he needs money thus going to twitch
Watch Critical's video comparing TH-cam and twitch. You make about 80x the amount of money on TH-cam than twitch.
Wouldn't it be cool if YT or Twitch or any ultra rich org/corp/human tossed some M's to Offbrand? We all know it's good for this industry's ecosystem.
Unfortunately hard to come by without strings attached and the model isnt fixed by that
It literally isn't good for the ecosystem lol. Also if Ludwig can't support it, it must be one the worst things to keep a float considering he's prob top 50 richest streamers.
@@aidigat9551 How is it not good for the ecosystem? Seriously interested in your answer.
This is such a bad idea
fiddler fiddling again
Stan! First he steals the premise for the intern show from Task Master, then he embezzles money.
Imagine creating a company that relay on the most lazy people on earth to go out and create events outside and expecting it not to fail
This company got like 3 clients. Lud,Connor and QT
I mean, it works for french streamers
They have massive events every month and a similar production company
@@RamzaBeoulvesIt works for them because the audience is completely different in their dedication to the creators. Creators outside of the U.S. and like U.S. minded countries enjoy extremely loyal and present fan bases. I can’t vouch for how French streamers are outside of what I’ve heard from the likes of Ludwig but I can tell you that East Asian/SEA creators have insanely loyal fans who wouldn’t miss a stream or event even if they are dying.
so he got robbed for 3m by his employee
oof
W
what a misleading title because the company is still alive its just one part of it that is shutting down
I mean as much as Ludwig doubles down on the publishing side, the vast majority of people didn’t even know he had a publishing side. The production part is what most people know “off brand” for
I mean as much as Ludwig doubles down on the publishing side, the vast majority of people didn’t even know he had a publishing side. The production part is what most people know “off brand” for
It’s not misleading the part that is shutting down is the main business. Offbrand games is a totally separate thing that happens to charge branding. That is why it’s not caught up in this.
The production side is like the main part that employs the most people, i don't think the game publishing division has all that many people working there. Most people who work at offbrand are losing their jobs
@@hastyscorpion Lets just say Amazon, wants to change overnight to making planes instead of everything else they do, are they shutting their company down? I dont understand the logic in your statement, they simply aren't shutting down the company, it's a misleading title.
First?
Turns out it's hard to make a co-op profitable. Ludwig's politics in ruins.
Bot
@Mfporte not
If you watch, you'll see this wasnt the issue. All it wouldve changed is more vc cash to burn time without making it sustainable long term
@theelectricant98 why don't you think co-ops are as common as other ownership structures?
@@Juangalt its not as profitable/for profit for the "owner". Its not because that this was a co-op that it failed. It was because of poor finances? Did you watch the video
You are required to pay 2 months when a company closes suddenly so you are doing the bare minimum.
That’s not true at all, go hate somewhere else
sure is look up the WARN act.
@@benjaminmealer2618 WARN only requires notice, not severance. Severance is only a suggestion in most sectors.
@@benjaminmealer2618 Did you even read it? Says nothing about severance.
@@benjaminmealer2618 WARN act only requires so if he had 100 employees or more (offbrand only had like 30 employees)