Rachell "Valkyrae" Hofstetter is among the latest video game livestreamers to leave Amazon-owned Twitch to stream on a rival service.

YouTube announced on Monday exclusive livestreaming deals with three popular gamers, its latest talent acquisition in the booming market for watching skilled video gamers stream their feats online.

The three — Rachell "Valkyrae" Hofstetter, Lannan "LazarBeam" Eacott and Elliott "Muselk" Watkins — will move to Google-owned YouTube after years of streaming on Amazon's Twitch. They're the latest players in a battle that has heated up over the past few months, as streaming companies lock in the biggest stars.

Twitch has dominated livestreaming, particularly video games, beginning with its founding as Justin.tv in 2011 and through Amazon's 2014 acquisition of the company for nearly $1 billion. Since then, tech rivals YouTube, Facebook and Microsoft's Mixer have angled to carve footholds in the livestreaming hype with their own platforms amid a booming market and the shift to a more digitally based entertainment industry.

The race got more heated when superstar streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins moved to Mixer in August. That was followed by Michael "Shroud" Grzesiek, whose 7 million followers was third-highest on Twitch with 7 million, moved over to Mixer in October.

These efforts have eaten into Twitch's lead in livestreaming. The company saw its dominance in the worldwide market for livestream hours watched drop from 67.1% in 2018 to 61% in 2019, according to data from gaming services StreamElements and Arsenal.gg.

YouTube saw its share grow from 27.5% in 2018 to 27.9% in 2019. Facebook Gaming, while much less popular, saw the most dramatic growth, leaping from 3.1% in 2018 to 8.5% in 2019.