Twitch Finds a Way to Make Money That Doesn’t Suck For You
Twitch finds a new ad monetization model and streamers aren't revolting.| Source: Nakharin Apiwatnodom via Shutterstock.com
Live streaming site Twitch has announced plans to change its ad system, finding a way of making money that doesn’t suck for viewers and streamers. Twitch has been criticized heavily this year for a few things such as the way it has been handing out bans for nude content, but the change to ads could restore faith in the community.
At TwitchCon 2019, Twitch confirmed that it would begin allowing streamers to schedule Ad Breaks. This would mean that a stream wouldn’t be interrupted by an ad and so viewers wouldn’t miss an important part of the gameplay such as the end of a game or an exciting play. It would also allow viewers to be entertained while the streamer uses the duration of the ad to get a drink or stretch their muscles in long streaming sessions.
Twitch Users Are Happy About Ads, Surprisingly
As well as that, the volume of ads will be “normalized” and picture in picture ads would become available for gaming channels. Picture in picture ads can make the gameplay window a little smaller so that viewers don’t miss the entertainment and the normalization of ad volume fixes the issue of incredibly loud ads that viewers have complained about for some time.
The new ad changes are also allowing Twitch affiliates, which are streamers with 50 followers among other stats, to get a cut of the ad revenue. Ads won’t be shown on non-affiliate Twitch streamers, which may make streamers work a bit harder to get to that money-making tier.
While it’s a little early to say how Twitch’s new ad changes will do, comments on social media confirm that the community is happy with the new system. Amazon purchased Twitch for nearly $1 billion in 2014 and it has also spent millions on exclusive rights to esports tournaments like the Overwatch League. That may be a huge amount of money to spend but with this sort of potential, where users are celebrating an advertising system, shows why that’s been a great investment.
