In the shifting streamer world, many big-name streamers have announced their move to one platform or another: Ninja, Shroud, and King Gothalion have signed with Mixer; DrLupo, timthetatman, and LIRIK have re-signed with Twitch. And now YouTube has announced that it has signed Felix Kjellberg, better known as Pewdiepie, to an exclusive streaming deal. [YouTube has been my home for over a decade now, and live streaming on the platform feels like a natural fit as I continue to look for new ways to create content and interact with my fans around the world," said Kjellberg. Live streaming is something I'm focused on for 2020 and beyond, and being able to partner with YouTube and be at the forefront of new product features is special and exciting for the future."

YouTube has also been the site of Kjellberg's occasional outbursts of racism and anti-Semitism, including one in which he paid two men in India to hold signs reading "Death to all Jews," and his reality show on YouTube Red, "Scare Pewdiepie" resulted in its cancellation. That same year, he used racial slurs during a live stream, and developer Campo Santo filed a DMCA takedown request regarding "Firewatch and future Campo Santo games."

In late 2019, Kjellberg criticized YouTube for introducing a new policy banning videos containing "veiled or implied threats" and videos that "maliciously insult someone based on protected attributes such as race, gender expression, or sexual orientation." announced that it would be "suspended" from YouTube.

But nothing succeeds like success, and Kjellberg remains one of the biggest streamers on the planet, despite his well-publicized troubles: his YouTube channel has 104 million subscribers, and since the channel's launch in 2010, it has received over 25 billion views views since launching the channel in 2010. And with Twitch and Mixer making bold moves to establish themselves in the live streaming scene, YouTube has clearly decided that the need to nail its own high-profile star outweighs any concerns about his past or potential future behavior.

Nevertheless, YouTube told PC Gamer that despite the new deal, it will not give Kjellberg special treatment if he continues to indulge in egregious behavior. A spokesperson said, "That [racist and anti-Semitic] remark was not in line with our values, so we took action at that time, including suspending his inclusion in our premium advertising program." If he were to violate any of our policies today, we would take action accordingly, as we would any other creator."

In April 2019, Variety reported that Kjellberg had signed an exclusive deal with streaming platform DLive, which uses the Lino Network blockchain-based currency platform. According to that deal, it was "a few months" and appears to have expired around the end of 2019: the last "replay" posted to his DLive channel was uploaded on January 3; the terms of the deal with YouTube were not disclosed, but Fortnite streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins was reportedly paid between $20 million and $30 million when he moved to Mixer last year.