Top Twitch streamers are voicing their anger over reported plans by the Amazon-owned platform to boost profits by cutting payouts on its partnerships program.
What reported by Bloomberg NewsTwitch is considering a number of changes to increase the revenue it earns from its most popular streamers. These include encouraging streamers to post more ads; reduce the revenue share for streamers from 70 percent to 50 percent (a favorable deal only available to some of the platform’s biggest draws); and the introduction of a new tier system that allows streamers to graduate through different revenue splits based on set metrics.
As a concession, Twitch could release partners from exclusivity clauses, allowing them to stream on rivals like YouTube and Facebook. Bloomberg emphasized that “updates to the partnerships program are not finalized and may be abandoned,” while Twitch declined to comment on the news to the publication.
In response, many streamers said the changes discussed would make life more difficult and could force them to move to rival platforms. However, others pointed out that Twitch has no serious competition in the streaming world, leaving the company to profit as it sees fit.
“Subscriptions are more important to the life of every streamer than almost any other utility Twitch offers and touching the divide is financially devastating and potentially removing thousands of full-time creators from their platform. [sic] immediately,” said Twitch streamer Jericho.
“What a joke. It makes it worse for everyone except themselves. said Irish youtuber Jacksepticeye.
Leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker said it was “wild” that Twitch didn’t consider their current revenue splits to be profitable enough, but that the platform’s biggest names have nowhere to go.
I hate to say it, but Twitch only makes moves like this because they think there’s no competitor in the live streaming space. The mixer is dead, Facebook is a black hole in relevance, and YT is too big to care about live streaming and slowing down change. they released some creators and stopped
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) April 27, 2022
“I hate to say it, but Twitch only makes moves like this because they think there’s no competitor in the live streaming space.” Piker tweeted. “Mixer is dead, Facebook is a black hole in relevance, and it’s too big to worry about live streaming and to change slowly.”
However, some streamers saw some positives in the Bloomberg report. “Most streamers are already getting 50/50 and a tier system that automatically moves you higher would be better than BEGING Twitch for a split.” tweeted YouTuber and Twitch streamer Stanz. “Is non-exclusivity also the norm? SOUNDS GOOD TO ME.”
According TwitchTracker data platform, the Amazon-owned streaming service currently has around 51,000 people in its partnership program. Viewers can pay to subscribe to channels starting at $5 a month (benefits include custom emotes and ad-free content, if allowed by the streamer) with Twitch and then split this revenue with content creators.
Amazon doesn’t break out Twitch’s revenue figures, but the company as a whole has been hit by slowing growth. in its most recent earnings reportAlthough sales rose nearly $8 billion in the first quarter year-over-year, analysts still balked at Amazon’s lower-than-expected projections for the second quarter.