Twitch Testing Channel Switcher, Mizkif Streaming on Rumble, Grace Van Dien Joins Faze, and Twitch Turbo Price Increase
This is going to be a weird way to start your week. I'm sorry. But sometimes in life, weird stuff happens. For example, all these ridiculous Tech CEO quotes. Or that time Zuckerberg wore a lot of sunscreen. Or when Jeff Bezos thanked us all for paying for his phallic space ride. Just weird stuff. Well, this week, Twitch's new CEO, Dan Clancy, went deep into the weird (admittedly on a show aiming for the absurd), where he was asked about how to convince a significant other to pee on them. If this is something you're into, he gave some golden advice.
While the segment earned him a few Zoomer fans, with plenty in the chat spamming W's, saying how cool he was - I can't help but think it's weird. As a community, we still don't really know that much about Dan. We've read some of his blogs and an interview or two - but other than that, he's an unknown. And so (to me) it feels weird for his biggest appearance yet to be as wild as this was. And look, I'm not against going along with the joke (as is evidenced above and in the linked tweets,) but it's just not streaming advice that I expected him to start with.
That said, if you listen to the advice - it's a very common corporate leadership strategy to go too far (pee in my mouth?), expect outrage (no, that's gross), and then give some back (how about we compromise and you pee on my chest?) But with that, let's get into the news.
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Twitch News
- Twitch's Terms of Sale page was updated with four new sections: Payment Method for Future Purchases, Modification of Subscription Services, Discontinuing "Digital Content" (Bits/Rewards/Tokens), and Refunds Policy. While the 'digital content' section doesn't mean that Bits are dying today, it does reinforce ongoing evidence to suggest that one day they will be.
- Version 2 of the Channel Switcher experiment went live this week for about 25% of users. It features longer ad-free watch time, better controls, and can even be used for clips.
- Turbo Ad-Free Viewing got a pricing overhaul, increasing from $9 to $12 in the USA (an increase of 33%). It also introduced local pricing, resulting in prices as high as 64% higher (UK) or reducing the price by up to 56% (Russia). Here is a complete list of all the localized changes and price differences.
- Soundtrack is officially being shut down on July 17th due to 'limited use from the Twitch Community.' Several sources tell me that some licenses to the music available on Soundtrack were coming due for renewal as a factor in the decision to shut it down.
- The TwitchEmotes site shut down unexpectedly last week. Commanderroot has set up a less-feature-rich replacement service. (One of the main functions TwitchEmotes offered was the ability to find anyone who might be stealing your emotes.)
- Chris Mead, a nearly 10-year staffer in Partnerships, is leaving Twitch.
- According to an interview in The Information, Twitch is working on its own version of live commerce.
- Twitch is investigating issues with people on Android, having their subs/bits purchases refunded and charged back to creators.
- Twitch deleted their AAPI 'reincarnated' tweet this week after backlash from the community.
- It's Super Ultra Combo Week on Twitch, with various FGC-inspired content and giveaways.