Line must go up - Twitch to cut streamer's pay rates

[Arika]

Summary

Streaming services seem to be having issues with money lately, maybe not to the point where they are in danger, but they just want more of it for themselves. Reports are coming in of Twitch's plans to cut streamer revenue down to 50% from 70%

 

Quotes

Quote

A new Bloomberg report citing people familiar with Twitch’s pay planning claims the company wants to incentivize streamers to run more ads in addition to considering reducing the portion of subscription fees allocated to performers. More specifically, the site’s top streamers would reportedly see their share of subscriptions dip down from 70% to 50%, according to Bloomberg. The company is also considering introducing multiple pay tiers with different criteria required to qualify for each. All told, these changes are intended to boost Twitch’s profitability, though it could come at the expense of their community’s most active users.

 

The tentative monetization considerations come amid a time of flux at Twitch. On one hand, the company’s riding high on a pandemic induced viewership surge. Some 24% of U.S. internet users between the ages of 16 to 64 said they began watching more live streams during the pandemic, according to GlobalWebIndex data viewed by Insider Intelligence. On the other hand though, even with that uptick in eyeballs, Twitch is simultaneously reeling from what Bloomberg calls a mass “exodus” of employees disappointed in the company’s direction. Some 300 employees reportedly left Twitch last year, with another 60 leaving in the first three months of 2022.

Quote

Updates to the partnerships program aren’t finalized and could be abandoned, the people said. A representative for Twitch declined to comment.

My thoughts

This might finally be the action that causes a competitor to pop up for all but the most large streamers with a "stable" income if this does indeed go through, creators constantly get shafted by the platforms they're on, in the name of money. I can't imagine some of the smaller streamers staying quiet for long.

 

I for one would love to see more competition to twitch, sure there's youtube, but it's not -quite- the same playing field.

 

Sources

https://gizmodo.com/twitch-reportedly-considering-cutting-streamer-pay-to-b-1848848610

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-27/amazon-s-twitch-seeks-to-revamp-creator-pay-with-focus-on-profit

[porina]

Didn't know partner level share was such. If it dropped as reported, obviously that would significantly affect the big streamers.

 

My bigger question is what is the impact on smaller streamers who made affiliate tier? Currently that's 50% cut already.

 

Moving platform doesn't seem to be much of an option. MS failed as they usually do with anything outside core business. Youtube is quite different although it can certainly work as shown by vtubers. Don't feel anything else is even an option for the English speaking world.

[That Franc]

Some partners have always gotten the 50/50 split treatment, 70% share is only for the special minority that make the most money for Twitch. Recently it's been driving people off the platform and onto YouTube as the rev split is 70/30 by default there.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, porina said:

Youtube is quite different although it can certainly work as shown by vtubers.

Nobody else is successful streaming on yt? (serious question*) 

Tbh i never understood the appeal of twitch... yt is higher quality, has a "chat thing" ... why do people choose twitch?

 

 

*thinking about it, there are certainly other streamers on yt, and they seem to  make $ (donations and whatnot) but i dont know how much (obviously) 

 

Im just asking whats the problem with yt streaming?  For me its the only option (cause i stream at 1440p) but i dont do it regularly, and mostly for myself 

[grg994]

Just to be fair unlike how seemingly similar the issue with payment in apps from Apple App Store is, on Twitch content creators can display links and even widgets to - and embrace the use of - direct donations (eg. through Streamelements) where they get nearly 100%.

 

Most streamers have their paid interaction set up for both direct donations and for twitch subs/bits (usually an 50/50 cut even now). I think about the later as just a bundle of both some donation and payment to get twitch benefits. While streamers lose the cut, they get sub numbers which are reportedly a good metric appealing to third-party sponsors. And there are integration tools to give Twitch subs automatically access to exclusives on external platforms (eg. Discord) making Twitch subbing usable like a paywall infrastructure which woudn't be free to set up otherwise.

 

I think especially after the recent twitch leaks twitch users are more aware that where their "donation" money goes, yet one can see a bunch of streamers who prefer subs over direct donations.

I'm afraid that in the hands of Amazon, Twitch will start sliding from a community-centric platform to a cash cow, but these current news are not those bad ones (yet).

[Doobeedoo]

They want to make it even less appealing for new streamers or what. It seems twitch is just digging it self and will just force people off it. Yeah not anytime soon. But oh did the site change over the years.

[jasonvp]

If this actually happens (note the emphasis on IF) I can see a migration over to YouTube.  The barrier to entry for monetization on YouTube is somewhat high (1000 subs, certain number of hours watched, etc) but a larger streamer could pretty easily cross that and begin making money.  Once they do cross that threshold, the sky is literally the limit.

 

The streamer UI on YouTube is atrocious (they know that) and pales in comparison to Twitch's.  The chat on YouTube isn't as feature-rich as Twitch's.  And there are some streamer features on Twitch such as gifted subs, etc, that aren't yet available on YouTube but are supposedly coming.  The "bot API" for lack of a better phrase is really slow and done in batches, I think.  That means if someone in chat fires off one of your !commands for a bot to answer (eg: "!specs" and the bot responds with your PC specs) it can take a couple of seconds before the bot responds.  That needs to be looked into.

 

The benefits?  EVERYONE gets transcoded to ALL resolutions from your base streamed resolution down to 360p (maybe lower?)  It doesn't matter what status you are as far as monetized, partner, etc.  EVERYONE has immediate access to the transcoders.  And they work wonderfully and quickly.  YouTube also has a significantly higher max bitrate; the official one is 51Mbits/sec.  Unofficially? ...

 

Technically, and possibly financially, YouTube is a vastly superior streaming platform.  From a community perspective, it's still "work in progress."

[porina]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

Nobody else is successful streaming on yt? (serious question*) 

Tbh i never understood the appeal of twitch... yt is higher quality, has a "chat thing" ... why do people choose twitch?

As Twitch streamer and as a viewer of other's streams on both:

 

Twitch has many more interaction functions between streamer and viewers.

Twitch live streams are generally more stable. YT tends to drop bitrate/quality if there is any glitch even if streamer side, and is very reluctant to increase it again (have to use plugins to force it on viewer side).

Twitch only offers live re-encoding for partners, and if there is spare capacity for affiliate and lower. I don't know how YT works there. This can be important if you want viewers with lousy internet or watch on mobile data.

 

I can't compare the ad experience directly as I have YT Premium so I don't get platform ads on YT. Twitch ads are pretty annoying and you can only remove it per-channel by paying.

 

Discoverability is probably worse on YT unless you already have a successful channel to leverage. Twitch at least you have a small chance of a random browser looking for the game you're streaming. 

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

*thinking about it, there are certainly streamers on yt, and they seem to  make $ (donations and whatnot) but i dont know how much (obviously) 

Superchat revenue is essentially public so it can be worked out with sufficient effort. Possible ad revenue on top of that. 

 

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

Im just asking whats the problem with yt streaming?  For me its the only option (cause i stream at 1440p) but i dont do it regularly, and mostly for myself 

It's not a problem as such, but it is different enough from Twitch to make it not a trivial move.

[Mark Kaine]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

As Twitch streamer and as a viewer of other's streams on both:

 

Twitch has many more interaction functions between streamer and viewers.

Twitch live streams are generally more stable. YT tends to drop bitrate/quality if there is any glitch even if streamer side, and is very reluctant to increase it again (have to use plugins to force it on viewer side).

Oh, ok I figured its something like that... the interaction part is pretty important obviously...

And for the quality, i noticed that too on yt, the bitrates can go down at any time, especially the longer it goes... overall while its an option,  yt doesn't seem to take streaming serious/  offers very little options or features, so i guess i get that part.

 

 

8 minutes ago, porina said:

I don't know how YT works there. This can be important if you want viewers with lousy internet or watch on mobile data.

 

you can definitely watch at lower res/bitrates, if thats what you mean, i usually monitor my streams on my phone (at 360p) because otherwise i cant even be sure its streaming at all (only have one monitor and alt tabbing isnt always an option)

 

For the rest, i see... twitch overall seems more suitable/ easier to get into, it just isnt for me (because of the quality restrictions) and as a viewer i always turn chat off anyways,  too annoying lol.

 

But I get it, there are definitely big differences in how it works / is set up.

13 minutes ago, porina said:

It's not a problem as such, but it is different enough from Twitch to make it not a trivial move.

 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Nobody else is successful streaming on yt? (serious question*) 

Tbh i never understood the appeal of twitch... yt is higher quality, has a "chat thing" ... why do people choose twitch?

 

Twitch is about community building. People come to you, engage with you, that's what the emotes, bits, channel points, subs, etc are for.

 

Youtube has "superchat" ... and that's it. If youtube put's emotes in, Twitch is done.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7544492?hl=en

 

Which they seem to have, but I've found no evidence of being available unless you're eligible to monetize, which can be never on youtube if you don't have 1000 follow(subscribed) people over there. Where as on Twitch you only need 200 follows and 3 consistent viewers.

YT:

vs Twitch:

Subscriber points are basically how you get the emote slots, so when you're an affiliate, you basically need the equivalent of 15 subs to get a 6th slot.

 

But the bar to be an affiliate is very low. The concurrent viewership is the hardest part, and for affiliate that's only 3, where as for Youtube that's 1000. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/72851?hl=en

 

For all intents, the bar is super-steep for youtube. You have to be giving youtube $14,000 (3.5*4000) worth of monetizable traffic before you can monetize, and until then, you get zero. So all that goes into youtube's pockets.

 

For Twitch, you only need to give Twitch $10.50 (3*3.5) worth of traffic.

 

[spartaman64]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Nobody else is successful streaming on yt? (serious question*) 

Tbh i never understood the appeal of twitch... yt is higher quality, has a "chat thing" ... why do people choose twitch?

 

 

*thinking about it, there are certainly other streamers on yt, and they seem to  make $ (donations and whatnot) but i dont know how much (obviously) 

 

Im just asking whats the problem with yt streaming?  For me its the only option (cause i stream at 1440p) but i dont do it regularly, and mostly for myself 

in my experience theres 0 discoverability on youtube you need to be looking for the streamer in order to find them. ive never been recommended a new streamer on youtube 

[Brooksie359]

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

Nobody else is successful streaming on yt? (serious question*) 

Tbh i never understood the appeal of twitch... yt is higher quality, has a "chat thing" ... why do people choose twitch?

 

 

*thinking about it, there are certainly other streamers on yt, and they seem to  make $ (donations and whatnot) but i dont know how much (obviously) 

 

Im just asking whats the problem with yt streaming?  For me its the only option (cause i stream at 1440p) but i dont do it regularly, and mostly for myself 

Honestly if youtube chat was as good as twich chat then I could see the appeal but unfortunately youtube doesn't seem to have nearly as good of a job with having quality emots and whatnot. Tbh it might just be the twich community as well because chat just seems dead on youtube in comparison to twitch. 

[Kisai]

21 minutes ago, ONOTech said:

 

Want to add something here and I don't mean this as an attack towards you at all, but...Twitch discoverability is awful (which you're not necessarily disagreeing with.)

 

The best way to grow on Twitch is to grow on another platform and bring them to twitch.

 

The platforms you grow twitch from is twitter and tiktok.

 

And if you don't have a presence on Twitter, you are dead to twitch and youtube. It's absolutely required. You don't need to "create for twitter" but you do need to let people on twitter know when you're actually streaming, because otherwise nobody is going to be checking youtube/twitch for when you are. Hell I don't even get most of the notifications from twitch/youtube that someone is streaming, on site or via email. I only know someone is streaming when I'm already on the site for some other reason, or if I'm scrolling through twitter.

 

Facebook and IG will not grow your viewership outside their platforms. Facebook is about locking you in, and thus unless you are streaming on facebook as well, you may as well not bother.

 

[Dr_Whom]

2 hours ago, porina said:

I can't compare the ad experience directly as I have YT Premium so I don't get platform ads on YT. Twitch ads are pretty annoying and you can only remove it per-channel by paying.

 

Twitch does offer Twitch Turbo to remove ads site wide like YT premium, so subbing to individual channels isn't the only way to remove ads..

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Twitch is about community building. People come to you, engage with you, that's what the emotes, bits, channel points, subs, etc are for.

 

Youtube has "superchat" ... and that's it. If youtube put's emotes in, Twitch is done.

Yeah... i get it now why twitch is more appealing *in general* although both services are awful in my opinion -- as said i just use yt for high resolution/ bitrate streams... i made a twitch account and deleted it immediately after a "test stream" ... just really poor quality and setup...

 

And yeah, i see... i cant really judge the "community aspect" because i find it really dreadful,  but i also understand yt's approach is... probably even worse.

 

44 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Honestly if youtube chat was as good as twich chat then I could see the appeal but unfortunately youtube doesn't seem to have nearly as good of a job with having quality emots and whatnot. Tbh it might just be the twich community as well because chat just seems dead on youtube in comparison to twitch. 

As the other poster said, i think yt streams only make sense if you're already big, its an additional income source, but yt doesn't care about small streamers at all...

 

Its kind of why i like it, i get nervous when i have 2 viewers lol, i really mainly stream for me and/or friends only -- easier than to record, edit, upload... and, in my experience the quality is better too when streaming (as long it doesn't bug out lol)

 

Chat is... in my Steam chat if any - as said I dont need no "stream chat" i wouldn't reply anyways  

 

 

[SolarNova]

I think by this point any individual thinking of become successful by streaming has already missed the train.

It left the station years ago and its just getting faster and faster making it very hard for new people to jump onboard.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

47 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

I think by this point any individual thinking of become successful by streaming has already missed the train.

It left the station years ago and its just getting faster and faster making it very hard for new people to jump onboard.

It left awhile ago for YT as well. It's possible, but very challenging for sure. 

[Vishera]

8 hours ago, Arika S said:

Reports are coming in of Twitch's plans to cut streamer revenue down to 50% from 70%

Twitch=Amazon...

Maybe it's just an excuse to rack more profit for the sake of the infinite increase in profits that share holders demand.

[porina]

2 hours ago, ONOTech said:

Want to add something here and I don't mean this as an attack towards you at all, but...Twitch discoverability is awful (which you're not necessarily disagreeing with.)

Both are bad, but IMO YT is worse than Twitch, assuming you're going at this from a streaming angle.

 

2 hours ago, ONOTech said:

The best way to grow on Twitch is to grow on another platform and bring them to twitch.

Have a friend who did well growing on Twitch, and was approaching the point where her income would have to be reported for tax if she continued much longer. She's retired that persona to reinvent herself as a vtuber to avoid possible conflicts with day job. She's debating making the move to YT which seems more popular for vtubers. Will be interesting to see how that goes. She's not the type to do things by half. I do have a live2d identity and I feel like a bit of a cheat to call myself a vtuber. It did increase my views when I set that tag.

 

2 hours ago, Dr_Whom said:

Twitch does offer Twitch Turbo to remove ads site wide like YT premium, so subbing to individual channels isn't the only way to remove ads..

I didn't know that existed. Shows how well they promoted that. I'll give it consideration since I jump around many smaller streamers and there's no way I'll sub to all of them.

[Dr_Whom]

40 minutes ago, porina said:

I didn't know that existed. Shows how well they promoted that. I'll give it consideration since I jump around many smaller streamers and there's no way I'll sub to all of them.

Yea I don't know why but promotion for it is non-existent. I only learned about it by seeing people in chats with the badge and wondering what it was.

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Vishera said:

Twitch=Amazon...

Maybe it's just an excuse to rack more profit for the sake of the infinite increase in profits that share holders demand.

Honestly the biggest secret is that twitch doesn't really make a ton of money and this is likely a move to incentivize streamers to run more ads as that is what twitch makes most of their money on. Sure they will get more money from the few streamers that actually still have the 70 30 split which tbh isn't that many people anymore as most have a 50 50 split so it won't effect them at all. 

[LAwLz]

I think it will be interesting to see which multi-millionaire streamers will come out and say how horrible Twitch is for cutting their salary from ~100,000 dollars (plus donations and sponsors) to a mere 71,000 (plus donations and sponsors) a month.

 

 

Also, please remember that this only affects the big streamers. The big streamers trying to play this as a "I'm just thinking of the small streamers" like hasanabi are just trying to misguide you. Small streamers already only get 50%.