Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Twitch Glitch
Twitch has become fond of floating trial balloons for the changes they love to inflict upon streamers. Some are minor enough that they go into effect without enough pushback to goad them into changing their minds. Removing the ability to for streamers to host other streamers while offline was among them, which larger streamers used to bring attention to smaller streamers (the latter category including those on this blog, whom I could maybe possibly join some day). (No, really. I’ll definitely join them.) The same applied to the payout percentage changes. Others, like the ad-based changes they’ve proposed this week, however, were enough to send the streaming world into an immediate and deserved uproar.
The fun started when Twitch released a set of new guidelines on Tuesday, with updated rules regarding what will and won’t be allowed going forward. The new rules required that on-stream logos, like those on ours, would have to be reduced to 3% of their size, with burned-in video ads, display ads, and audio ads no longer being allowed. Other forms of advertising, like the ads that accompany every Twitch stream, products displayed in the backdrop, links to other sites or products posted in the chat (which we rely heavily on), discussing and endorsing specific products, and playing sponsored games, would still be allowed. But the features being removed were a big deal, enough that serious adjustments would need to be made to how smaller streams are conducted.
Local fighting game, eSports, and charity events depend heavily on having branded logos prominently displayed on Twitch user interfaces to inform viewers of whose stream they’re watching and who to donate to. Being forced to make that smaller would rob them of key advertising opportunities. The same applies to the ads streamers like to provide themselves, which many, large and small, implement on the regular. Those include the Games Done Quick streams, with the new rules fortuitously being announced as they wrapped up the summer session. (The rules weren’t set to go into July 1st, so the timing was perhaps coincidental.) Genuine charities like the Doctors Without Borders would run into similar issues, considering how logo heavy their streaming UIs tends to be.
Fortunately, Twitch saw the massive amount of backlash garnered by the streaming and stream watching audience, and the deservedly negative reports in the press, and reversed them. They first tried to say they would merely seek to clarify their intentions with the new rules, which didn’t work because the new guidelines couldn’t have been clearer. They seriously figured the audience was dumb enough to think all they needed was an improved explanation.
For as much as I’d like to believe the collectively venomous reaction from the smaller fanbase forced the reversal, chances are complaints from larger streamers moved the needle the most. MMO streamer Asmongold was among the first, who called for streamers to start boycotting Twitch and to look into other platforms. MrBeast called on Twitch to help their streamers make more rather than planning methods to screw them, and threatened to stream on rising competitor Kick in protest. MrBeast is so large a phenomenon that he could have convinced Twitch to reverse their position alone.
The reversal isn’t stopping some of them from leaving. United Kingdom streamer Marco aka “Stallion,” for instance, told the BBC that this was “the push that [he] needed to get [him] off this platform.” He’s unlikely to be the only one.
This entire incident raised a genuine concern despite the current reversal: There are not enough competing platforms for other streamers to bail to. We’re long gone from the days of Justin.tv and UStream, two names largely vanished into the large internet either. (I’ll never let go of my memories of watching early Street Fighter IV streams on both platforms 14 years ago.) Microsoft’s Mixer also sadly vanished too soon, and Facebook has significantly downsized their efforts to lure large streamers. The only competitors remaining are YouTube, which has similarly restrictive advertising rules and other issues like caving to bad-faith harassment campaigns, and the still-rising Kick and Rumble platforms. There’s a good reason why Twitch feels so emboldened to try and implement bad changes like this, and is so divorced from the streaming world that they think they’d go over well.
It would be in the best interests of everyone among the streaming world if those competitors seriously rose to prominence. This has all been an ample display of what companies think they can get away with when they damn-well know their userbase has few other options. This will be far from the last time Twitch tries to implement something inane, but there’s an open question as to whether the power of the users and viewers will be enough to stop them the next time around.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
