Twitch is testing a new feature that would allow viewers to pay money to promote a show, only days after unveiling new safety features to shield streamers from hate raids. The new feature has been rumored on social media, and a Twitch spokesman has now confirmed to The Verge that it is currently being tested with a small number of broadcasters.
A Twitch representative said, “We’re beginning an experiment with a limited number of growing channels that allows their audiences to purchase promotions to highly visible sections of Twitch.”
Twitch’s Patch Notes program went into great depth regarding the new sponsored boost functionality. Here’s where you may find the appropriate part of the show.
This is how the promotion works. During a stream, a notice will appear notifying viewers that the boost option is available for 10 minutes. Viewers who participate can then pay for a variety of recommendations.
There are two purchasing options in the demonstration: 1,000 suggestions for.99 cents and 3,000 recommendations for $2.97. These boost buy windows appear at random for participating streams and can occur as frequently as every time they go live.
This boost function is simply a sponsored version of the community challenge program “Boost this Stream,” which is currently in existence. Viewers may pool channel points — essentially points earned by participating in stream activities such as following and repeated viewing — and use them to promote a creator throughout the platform in Boost this stream.
Twitch product manager Jacob Rosok said the new paid program was inspired by community input. Streamers, he added, wanted more chances to have their streams pushed and for that marketing to be more effective.
Twitch appears to be merely assigning a monetary value to “impact” as a measure of its significance. The more money spent on recommendations, the more front-page exposure a streamer receives, and the greater the “effect” of a boosted stream on its originator.
Hundreds of thousands of producers are live streaming on Twitch at any one moment, all competing for more viewers. However, the algorithm that recommends streamers to viewers favors the top streamers — behemoths like Amouranth and auronplay, which have millions of subscribers and tens of thousands of viewers at any given moment.
As a result, appearing on Twitch’s coveted main page is one of the few ways for lesser streams to be discovered. Essentially, this new boost scheme allows streamers to sidestep the algorithm’s luck and pay directly for their time on top. Getting on the first page means more people will see your content. More views imply more ad income, more subscription revenue, and more appeal when asking for sponsorships, which means, you guessed it, more cash.
Twitch is getting a cut of every dollar at every level. Twitch presently takes 50% of a streamer’s subscription income (less if you’re a special partner) and keeps the rest. Twitch gets a cut of every transaction made by a spectator who buys bits to cheer with. Twitch receives a cut of ad income as well, but none of the money spent promoting a stream is shared with the author.
It reminds me of a gacha game. Sure, you can play for free (e.g., engage in community challenges), but you’ll have to pay to get a shot at the good stuff (e.g., quick community development). And, like with every gacha game, whales will surely appear. Twitch understands that viewers want to see their favorite streamers thrive. What better way to guarantee that achievement than to just pay for it?
“We believe that paying to assist a creative in growing their community will be beneficial to their fans,” Rosok adds.
Viewers may help streamers in other ways, and streamers can find greater audiences in other ways. Viewers can use tags to find streams that suit their unique requirements. Raids (of the non-hate kind) combine the audiences of two or more creators. Smaller streamers are also pushed on the front page during Black History Month, Pride Month, and Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Rosok also points out that the free community challenge version of stream boosting will continue to be accessible for those who don’t want to invest money but still want to support their favorite streams.
The program is only open to tiny streamers with less than 250 followers for now, and it will run over the next four weeks. Twitch will share statistics with authors so that they can see how a boost affects their traffic. Twitch also emphasizes that this is only a test, and there is no assurance that the program will be implemented across the board or even in its present form.
A Twitch spokesman states, “This experiment is not complete and will continue to improve depending on community input.”
