Twitch is reportedly considering major changes to monetization practices, which streamers are upset about because the potentially biased percentages improve Twitch’s bottom line.
according to a Bloomberg Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, is reportedly considering several changes to its affiliate program to boost its profits. These changes include a new subscription revenue split, a new tier system, and increased advertising.
One of the monetization changes under consideration is a revenue cut from subscriptions for partner streamers, Twitch’s most popular streamers. The proposed cut would cut partner streamers’ subscription revenue from 70% to 50%.
Another proposal Twitch is considering is adding a tier system for partner streamers. Corresponding Bloomberg, these tiers describe the criteria a streamer must meet in order to receive 50% or 70% of the revenue from their subscription. In return for this proposal, said anonymous sources Bloomberg that Twitch could free streamers from their exclusivity in their contracts, allowing them to stream to Twitch competing sites like YouTube and Facebook Gaming to recoup potentially cut revenue.
Twitch is also reportedly considering incentivizing more advertising through “revenue-sharing agreements.” Bloomberg says, will present “a more lucrative model for streamers.”
Twitch streamers did not take well to the news of Twitch’s proposed changes to its affiliate program. Twitch streamer PleasantlyTwstd tells my box that she is not surprised that Twitch is investigating these changes. If changes come to the site this summer as it is now, PleasantTwstd said smaller streamers will have “little to no incentive” to grow their channels on the platform.
“I think smaller streamers will have little to no incentive at this stage to really push for growth.” PleasantTwstd called. “It’s going to feel like making a payout that you have to have in order to hit more subscribers, and the fight right now is discoverability in the first place.”
PleasantlyTwstd said she’d like to see streamers included in the conversation about Twitch’s monetization changes so they get “serious” endorsements.
“Twitch is in a bit of a hold where the priority is monetizing the platform, but until they actually try to work more closely with the people who are making them money or making tools freely, they’re just going to keep coming up with ideas throw out and ‘initiatives’ that go nowhere,” she said.
Left-wing streamer Hasan “Hasanabi” Piker told Twitter the reason Twitch made these changes is because the company doesn’t see itself as a competitor in the live streaming space, so there’s little reason to offer anything that’s relevant to its user is really convincing.
“[I] Love twitches, but it seems like they’re moving away from it [content creators] to fix their profits, Piker said in a tweet. “Almost all of my earnings come from subscribers who choose to give me $5 a month. Twitch doesn’t think the 50/50 split it’s asking of smaller creators in the process is profitable enough. This is wild.”
“Subscriptions are more important to any streamer’s life than almost any other utility Twitch offers, and touching the split means financially devastating thousands of full-time creators and potentially removing them from your platform immediately.” JERICHO called.
“What a joke. Makes it worse for everyone except Twitch itself.” said Jacksepticeye.
“Twitch is crazy if they think it’s going to be well received.” Max “Gasy Mexican” Gonzalez said. “How actually going to shake the platform in the worst possible way.”
my box asked Twitch for comment.
Although these proposed changes are reported to be coming to the site as early as this summer, anonymous sources said Bloomberg None of these changes have been completed.
