Streaming giant Twitch.tv has had it’s fair share of headlines. Everything from security breaches, massive creator bans and some of the most eyebrow raising copyright rules – but this recent news may take the cake.
They are exploring the idea of ‘revamping’ their Creator Pay structure, with the biggest changes including a smaller payout and a bigger push to run ads.
Via Bloomberg, the Amazon-owned live-streaming platform is reportedly reviewing how it pays it’s highest contributors – with a focus on better long-term profit from advertising partners, by boosting the payout for ads run during a stream.
The proposal includes streaming partners receiving $100 for running two minutes of ads per streaming hour, which absolutely dwarfs the current model of $3 to $5 dollars per 1000 ad impressions. The trade off being that the existing revenue split would shift from 70/30 split in the streamers favour, to 50/50.
So on one hand, there is the freedom for a streamer to possibly earn more by subjecting their audience to ads – admittedly quite torturous when you consider that most ads nowadays are unbearable garbage.
Twitch has also noted a consideration to implement “tiers” of partnership, each with their own unique criteria – notably the mention that they could lift exclusivity restrictions to allow an individual to stream on other platforms like YouTube and Facebook Gaming.
It’s hard to imagine if that would be considered freeing for some content creators, as it essentially creates an atmosphere where they would be “working more than one job” to possibly make the living they require, and even opens the competitors of Twitch to make some attractive offers – especially if the Twitch streams are infested with ads.
Anonymous Twitch leadership was very blunt in saying that all of this is experimental and could be entirely abandoned, but I can imagine that individuals invested in their Twitch relationship will be keeping an active ear to the ground for news as it develops.
Are you a Twitch streamer? Or an avid fan concerned about your favourite content creator? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
