The existing affiliate requirements (which the article erroneously refers to as partnership requirements) seem pretty low as is - 50 followers, average 3 viewers per stream, and have at least 8...
The existing affiliate requirements (which the article erroneously refers to as partnership requirements) seem pretty low as is - 50 followers, average 3 viewers per stream, and have at least 8 hours of total streaming across 7 different days. If they aren't hitting that, then I suspect they're not going to get enough revenue to hit the payout threshold of $50.
It almost sounds like they're trying to take advantage of future failed streamers by getting their friends and family to throw some money at them before they give up.
Ages ago I tried streaming on twitch. There were groups of people who would support each other to get past that affiliate hurdle, so as long as you did even a minimal amount of networking, it...
Ages ago I tried streaming on twitch. There were groups of people who would support each other to get past that affiliate hurdle, so as long as you did even a minimal amount of networking, it wasn't difficult.
But as you suggest, actually getting the money to roll in is much harder. I got a prime sub from one person I networked with, but other than that... not much. Twitch seems to have improved discoverability of streamers with smaller view counts, but it's still a battle. It truly is a job- you have to keep up with social media accounts and potentially other communication methods like Discord to let people know when you're streaming, keeping a consistent schedule has benefits, and starting out by streaming just one game (not a "variety streamer").
People don't realize this and think it's a get rich quick situation. When, as with many of these platforms, only the top X% (maybe 5% in twitch's case?) make enough to actually live off of. And even then, these people have to constantly keep making content. You have to effectively be an entertainer. If you want to push highlights to YouTube, you either spend time editing or hire an editor. It's a constant grind.
Back when I still bothered to use Twitch my main desire was to have some way of filtering streamers by useful, AND CONFIRMED, tags. I don't want to watch loudmouth mc streams. I want to watch the...
Back when I still bothered to use Twitch my main desire was to have some way of filtering streamers by useful, AND CONFIRMED, tags.
I don't want to watch loudmouth mc streams. I want to watch the guy who's been playing this series/genre for the last 5+ years. Likewise I want to see who's playing X character or Y faction or whatever.
That mostly boiled down to sifting through titles as best you could and then sifting through the rest as of course there's a ton of people who are just "eh" at actually playing/watching. These days my understanding is that games aren't even a significant portion of their income, so I doubt something like that will ever exist.
Eh, I know you're probably referring to the "Just Chatting" and "Hot Tubs and Pools" categories, which certainly do bring in a lot of revenue, but I would be floored if that was even 50%. There's...
These days my understanding is that games aren't even a significant portion of their income
Eh, I know you're probably referring to the "Just Chatting" and "Hot Tubs and Pools" categories, which certainly do bring in a lot of revenue, but I would be floored if that was even 50%. There's still a lot of high profile streamers that mostly stream games.
There's some decent data here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/517907/twitch-app-revenue/ That said I should probably have clarified that "people wanting to see gameplay" is not a thing. It's...
That said I should probably have clarified that "people wanting to see gameplay" is not a thing. It's "personalities" that twitch sells more than gameplay, so "who's doing well on X character" is not a feature they want to push because it's more "watch this top 10 person throw a reaction tantrum in Y game!".
But yes "Just chatting" and friends do make up a significant chunk as well and arguably could use a similar tag system for subject matter, but again probably not even on their radar. I'm a little curious how much money twitch gets from the donations pile, and god knows secondary revenue streams a huge for the uh....suggestive?...streamers, but as a useful place to see relevant gameplay it seems horrific.
They also probably could do something to help control chat in a few ways (breaking into smaller groups, letting people make sub groups and what not) so you can have your mix of real conversation about the topic and the never ending horde spamming in jokes, but not sure what their take on that is. I think some stuff was done/started there, but twitch chat is infamous for a reason.
No disagreement there, and that applies to most platforms with user-generated content. I also wish there were better ways to filter through content on all platforms, though. But that would require...
It's "personalities" that twitch sells more than gameplay
No disagreement there, and that applies to most platforms with user-generated content.
I also wish there were better ways to filter through content on all platforms, though. But that would require either the users generating the content to add that metadata themselves, or the platform to use some guesswork ("AI") to assign the metadata automatically.
The existing affiliate requirements (which the article erroneously refers to as partnership requirements) seem pretty low as is - 50 followers, average 3 viewers per stream, and have at least 8 hours of total streaming across 7 different days. If they aren't hitting that, then I suspect they're not going to get enough revenue to hit the payout threshold of $50.
It almost sounds like they're trying to take advantage of future failed streamers by getting their friends and family to throw some money at them before they give up.
Ages ago I tried streaming on twitch. There were groups of people who would support each other to get past that affiliate hurdle, so as long as you did even a minimal amount of networking, it wasn't difficult.
But as you suggest, actually getting the money to roll in is much harder. I got a prime sub from one person I networked with, but other than that... not much. Twitch seems to have improved discoverability of streamers with smaller view counts, but it's still a battle. It truly is a job- you have to keep up with social media accounts and potentially other communication methods like Discord to let people know when you're streaming, keeping a consistent schedule has benefits, and starting out by streaming just one game (not a "variety streamer").
People don't realize this and think it's a get rich quick situation. When, as with many of these platforms, only the top X% (maybe 5% in twitch's case?) make enough to actually live off of. And even then, these people have to constantly keep making content. You have to effectively be an entertainer. If you want to push highlights to YouTube, you either spend time editing or hire an editor. It's a constant grind.
Back when I still bothered to use Twitch my main desire was to have some way of filtering streamers by useful, AND CONFIRMED, tags.
I don't want to watch loudmouth mc streams. I want to watch the guy who's been playing this series/genre for the last 5+ years. Likewise I want to see who's playing X character or Y faction or whatever.
That mostly boiled down to sifting through titles as best you could and then sifting through the rest as of course there's a ton of people who are just "eh" at actually playing/watching. These days my understanding is that games aren't even a significant portion of their income, so I doubt something like that will ever exist.
Eh, I know you're probably referring to the "Just Chatting" and "Hot Tubs and Pools" categories, which certainly do bring in a lot of revenue, but I would be floored if that was even 50%. There's still a lot of high profile streamers that mostly stream games.
There's some decent data here:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/517907/twitch-app-revenue/
That said I should probably have clarified that "people wanting to see gameplay" is not a thing. It's "personalities" that twitch sells more than gameplay, so "who's doing well on X character" is not a feature they want to push because it's more "watch this top 10 person throw a reaction tantrum in Y game!".
But yes "Just chatting" and friends do make up a significant chunk as well and arguably could use a similar tag system for subject matter, but again probably not even on their radar. I'm a little curious how much money twitch gets from the donations pile, and god knows secondary revenue streams a huge for the uh....suggestive?...streamers, but as a useful place to see relevant gameplay it seems horrific.
They also probably could do something to help control chat in a few ways (breaking into smaller groups, letting people make sub groups and what not) so you can have your mix of real conversation about the topic and the never ending horde spamming in jokes, but not sure what their take on that is. I think some stuff was done/started there, but twitch chat is infamous for a reason.
No disagreement there, and that applies to most platforms with user-generated content.
I also wish there were better ways to filter through content on all platforms, though. But that would require either the users generating the content to add that metadata themselves, or the platform to use some guesswork ("AI") to assign the metadata automatically.