Twitch Streamers Unite In Disgust At Platform's Latest Plans

The Amazon owned streaming platform Twitch is rumoured to be discussing changes to the platform in order to increase revenue. 

According to a report by Bloomberg, Twitch wants to make a push for streamers to run more ads during their streams. Anonymous sources say that the company is planning to offer incentives for streamers to play more ads, not just at the beginning, but during their gameplay. However, this comes with a slash to the percentage streamers earn from subscriptions. Currently, the average partner earns 50% of the revenue for a tier one sub (around ₤2), 60% at tier two (around ₤5), and 70% at tier three (around ₤14). If the changes are implemented all revenue splits would be reduced to 50%. 

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While the top streamers have the opportunity to negotiate their contracts, for the majority of people on the platform, including the over 50,000 people known as Twitch Partners, they are paid out at this rate. Currently, partners receive a maximum of around ₤4 per 1000 impressions when running one minute adverts, though subscribers are not included in this figure.

As such, partners receive a tiny portion of their revenue from advertising, and instead rely on subscriptions for the majority of their income. There are fears that increasing advertising, in particular mid-game, will alienate viewers and will result in fewer people returning to watch.

JackSepticEye, a YouTuber and Twitch Partner with almost 3 million followers on the platform, was quick to tweet out his disappointment. “What a joke. Makes it worse for everyone except Twitch themselves.”

While artist, Twitch streamer and former member of the Game Grumps, Ross O’Donovan said, “seems very counterintuitive for having people choose your platform. Hope this gets a lot of backlash. Would be deserved.”

The one positive change for streamers seems to be the end of exclusivity. Currently the majority of Partners are only allowed to stream on Twitch. Also content streamed on Twitch must remain exclusive to the platform for a number of days. This would allow streamers to make content on competitors such as Facebook and YouTube without fear of repercussions.