What a busy week for Twitch! The company announced two significant changes to the platform, both controversial and financially driven. First, the more challenging bit of news for creators and communities - tier 1 web sub prices are going up. This follows the footsteps of price increases in Canada, the UK, and Australia earlier in the year. At the time of those announcements, they said they wanted to see the data before making other changes. Those price increases went into effect on March 28. That means only 70 days passed before they announced this next larger round of increases.
In my opinion, there's NO CHANCE they got enough data in two billing cycles to have gleamed any significant data (especially with May being the first month of the Plus Program eligibility stacking the financial deck). It's far more likely that this would always happen as they planned, and no real-world data would impact that. Much like the poor rollout of local price subs back in 2021, I think this will hurt creator earnings. Polls by Lowco (US audience, 59% Less Subs, 27% Same) and my Japanese counterpart, Wataxx (36% Less Subs, 31% Same), suggest that people will reduce their sub count. Prepare for that possibility.
Second, they announced the new DJ Program, which makes DJing Pay to Play for monetized creators. While the deal itself is good for DJs to have platform security, any time money is carved off in a black box (Twitch isn't telling creators what percentage will be taken), that never feels good - especially in an industry that is already experiencing a massive correction after the pandemic boom. And while there's currently no indication that this deal will expand beyond DJs, one can't help but wonder what's over the hill a couple of years into the future for ALL creators... Time will tell!
That said, it's a great time for creators to take control of their financial success! There's no better platform for that than Fourthwall, which allows creators to launch your own membership program (with a 95% split), your own merch, and more! ALSO, Fourthwall and StreamElements just announced a partnership that brings Fourthwall to StreamElements users and introduces a new gifting widget, merch rotator, and Twitch sub-discounts for Fourthwall users.
Get started now with Fourthwall, and you'll get a $15 Sample Credit to help build the business around your content! And now, let's get into the news!
Twitch News
- On July 11th, Twitch will increase subscription prices in over 30 countries, including the USA, which will be $5.99 (up from $4.99). This price increase brings subscriptions up to 43% higher.
- A new upgrade your subscriptions experiment asks subscribers to change to a higher tier. It dangles the Plus Program carrot, even if the streamer has no Plus goal active.
- The Chat Warning system was released to all creators last week.
- The Raid Browser was released to all creators last week.
- Partner Checkmarks now show up on discovery pages throughout the platform.
- Twitch changed enforcement such that VRChatters were subject to the same inappropriate attire policy as other Vtubers; within 36 hours, they rolled back the update. Clueless policy-making decisions...
- Twitch announced a deal with the music industry that will allow DJs to stream most mainstream music but with significant conditions.
- DJs will need to opt into the program.
- A portion of all channel revenue will go to the labels (Twitch won't share how that amount will be calculated.)
- VODs, Clips, and Highlights will be turned off on the channel.
- These terms apply to the entire channel, so if you're only a part-time DJ, Twitch recommends starting a new channel just for DJing.
- There is a new dedicated sales page for the DJ Program.
- This only impacts DJs; other streamers should continue NOT playing copyrighted music.
- Twitch covers the costs of non-monetized creators.
- For the music industry, the deal appears to be similar to a "creator fund" in that all the money taken from DJs goes into a pool. Based on the songs played it will pay out to the labels from the overall fund.
- The deal took three years to structure/negotiate.
- The Monetized Streamer Agreement was updated to include new details on the forthcoming Sub Token system, offering fixed-rate fees rather than local Tier 1 sub-equivalents.
- The New Chatter Introduction feature is being deprecated. It's not the New Chatter Highlight but rather a whole other implementation. You can learn more about it in The Twitch Graveyard!
- Last week, maximilian_dood did a Twitch sanctioned test of HEVC (H.265). The test featured 1440p, 60FPS at 12,000 Kbps.
- Two Destiny 2 badges tied to Twitch Rivals went up last week.
