Twitch Streamers is furious after the company’s decision to drastically change the amount of money it gets from creators. Twitch is one of the biggest platforms on the internet in large part due to the creators who have been streaming it for years. Without creative and entertaining creators, there would be no Twitch. The Amazon-owned platform has rewarded its creators over the years with new features, money via donations, subscriptions, and more. Amazon even introduced a feature that allows viewers to link their Amazon Prime accounts and give away one free sub-stream each month, giving the viewer pretty much free money.
Well, a big change is coming and people are incredibly unhappy with it. Hours after confirming that Twitch would regulate the type of gambling content on its platform, it broke a lot of the goodwill that came with that news by announcing something that many were afraid of. Twitch confirmed This reduces the 70/30 subdivision of all streaming devices to 50/50, which means that creators lose about 20% of their previous income. Now, the 50/50 model has been in place for a while, but for the biggest players that have taken over the platform and are growing fast, it’s got a 70/30 split. Those currently in the 70/30 form will be able to keep that for the first $100K earned through subs, but after that, it’s split 50/50. These changes will take effect in June 2023. Broadcasters could compensate for this by running more ads as Twitch confirmed that its ad share is now 55%. Twitch also indicated that the reasons for doing so are due to the platform’s operating costs and so it can reinvest the money into more employees and products. Some streamers have found the logic questionable given that Twitch doesn’t really add a lot of meaningful new features, doesn’t suffer from a lack of moderation issues, and is also powered by the massive tech giant Amazon.
Of course, Twitch Streamers are very angry about this and some creators like Jerma are even threatening to leave the platform altogether. While a few years ago Twitch might have ignored this, the climate for streaming has changed. YouTube is a major player in the streaming space and is growing rapidly with creators like Ludwig, TimTheTatman, and Valkyrae. YouTube also became home to DrDisrespect after being banned on Twitch, although it doesn’t have any exclusive contract like the aforementioned streaming devices.
What do you think of Twitch’s decision? Let me know in the comments or hit me up TwitterCade_Onder. You can view some reactions to the news below.
