First off, apologies that this recap is a day late! After a hectic week covering everything happening at Twitchcon live on stream, my Sunday evening time management was a mess! Fortunately, that means this recap includes an extra day of info! Let's jump into it.
Twitchcon News
Twitchcon San Diego 2022 just wrapped up - from the outside looking in, it was quite a mixed bag. Covering creators live from the convention floor offered a first-person perspective, mixed with the stories from sources made clear: Security was a big issue. Mask mandates weren't enforced. Bags were often not checked. Badge sharing was common, allowing access to Partner areas by non-partners. It seems like a total breakdown in communication between Twitch and the security team. We're all fortunate that nothing 'bad' happened... I wonder how long that luck lasts.
As for the convention itself, it opened with a keynote from Twitch CEO Emmett Shear that can only be described as empty. Here are the highlights from the keynote to get a sense of how this all kicked off.
- $50 Payouts are coming to US creators starting this upcoming payment period.
- Guest Star is going to be available to all creators next month.
- Taizun has put together a list of ALL the Twitchcon panels and sessions. There's some great stuff here: if you're a streamer, you should go back and watch.
- Twitch's Patch Notes, which featured Twitch executives being asked the 'hard questions,' didn't make me feel any better, but it did affirm that the future is uncertain. Unfortunately, I can't summarize it today, but I intend to post a video on it! (I will link in a future recap.)
- Twitch streamer Adriana Chechik broke her back in two places at the Lenovo Legion and Intel pit. Loch_Vaness dislocated her knee. NBC and other national news outlets have covered this story in greater detail.
- Travel streamer JakenbakeLive had an opportunity to chat with Twitch President Dan Clancy at Twitchcon. He walked away feeling "depressed and sad." Conversely, MrGregles felt a bit of "hope" about the future.
- Multiple threads covered the extensive lack of consideration for those with disabilities.
- The Dream SMP panel, which featured some of Minecraft's biggest creators in the world, was held in a room with a capacity of 400. Thousands wanted to attend, leading to fear, concerns, and disappointment.
- Comedian Ron Funches had a bad experience with Twitchcon security, who wanted to kick him out of the convention.
- Masterchief was spotted dancing with Megan Thee Stallion.
- A positive highlight was the Partner Party, where everyone seemed to have a positive experience. Feedback remained that +1s are needed in future events for safety concerns. Oh, and a Partner got banned live at the party for streaming.
Despite the mixed bag of on-scene semi-disasters... most creators walked away with a positive experience. That is a testament to how amazing the streaming community is. If Twitch were to disappear tomorrow, this community would find a new home and work to build back what it currently has. People above all else!
Twitch News
Despite Twitch not having announced anything of note at Twitchcon itself, several things did get updated on the service this week.
- Creators can now download Clips on the mobile app.
- Elevated Chats (aka GIGAchats) has been updated to extend the time on higher amounts.
- Payout Dashboards now have a more transparent display of taxes and fees paid when getting paid out.
- Twitch is changing its Follow API to limit access to seeing channels a user follows. No timeframe on when this will go into effect.
- J Eatedali, Co-Head of Global Talent at Twitch, has left for UTA.
- Wired covered why "Success on Twitch No Longer Comes on Twitch."
- Here is a sneak peek of Twitch's upcoming Channel Analytics reorganization.
- Twitch evidently has a new office - here's a look at the exterior.
- Russia fined Twitch for the third time for failing to remove fake news related to Ukraine.
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