Amazon GameLift, Discord x Xbox, TikTok Visa, + Polish Creator Sets Charity Record

Hello and welcome to this week's newsletter! The streaming space continues to surprise (to the upside) as Polish YouTube streamer Łatwogang completed a marathon stream for the Cancer Fighters charity, aiming to raise about $140,000 USD. Unexpectedly, he became a national hero when his stream gained widespread attention, and he went on to raise roughly ~$69,000,000 USD. That's more than three times the previous record set in France by Zerator's Z Event. It attracted national media attention, appearances, and support from Poland's biggest celebrities and companies. Incredible!

In another corner of the streaming space, RageDarling inspired a great conversation about streaming and brand deals. It starts with her admitting that her career is rapidly coming to a close as brand deal dollars are drying up (down ~89% year over year). I had to share it and offer my own insight (very wordy!) into what's going on, but there's some incredible insight among brand partnership people in the replies to both posts. (For those who don't want to visit X, here's my xcancel and rage's xcancel links.) Worth a read through!

And with that, let's get into the news!

🟪 TWITCH

• Amazon is experimenting with the ability to play games through Twitch. The product is called GameLift and is primarily an ad product.
• New Badges: FF14 JP 1 (Watch Time), FF14 JP 2 (Watch Time), FF14 NA 1 (Watch Time), FF14 NA 2 (Watch Time), FF14 EU 1 (Watch Time), FF14 EU 2 (Watch Time), Invincible VS ($)
• KawaiiGuy has left Twitch after 8 years.
• Niche Content: This creator backed up their hard drive to Twitch.
• Opera has added Twitch (and YouTube) to the browser sidebar.

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube will no longer send mobile push notifications to people who haven't engaged with your content for over a month.
• YouTube expanded likeness detection to talent agencies, management companies, and more celebrities.

⬛ TIKTOK

• You can now post exclusively to your Friends circle.
• TikTok and Visa launched a Creator Card to help UK LIVE creators access and spend their earnings faster.

🟦 OTHER STREAMERS

• Capital Brief reported on Kick and its impact on the manosphere.
• Kick is improving widescreen streaming on the mobile app. Wise call. Vertical streaming is a plague.
• Twitter X Head of Product Nikita Bier has teased an update for livestreamers that will result in a monetization multiplier.