The newsletter is late today, as I was contemplating what I wanted to do. Right now, there's a call for a global strike to protest the fact that the UN failed to pass a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. While most countries voted for it, the US vetoed it. Without getting overly political, I decided not to stream today to support that protest, which left this newsletter in limbo. However, I've decided to send it with this intro instead in hopes that it may reach some people unaware of what's happening. Many of us are incredibly fortunate not to live in a warzone. If a minor inconvenience may have even the slightest chance of doing something for those who do live in a warzone, it feels like a pretty reasonable sacrifice. Alternatively, if you'd like to make your dollars do the work, the Palestine Children's Relief Fund seems to be a solid choice.
And with that, let's get into this week's news!
Twitch News
- Affiliates and Partners can now unlock TEN non-animated (previously, the number was nine.) Animated emotes have been doubled from 5 to 10, and two additional ones can be unlocked by having any Twitch alert active. Partners also unlocked FIVE animated emotes for Tier 2 Subs and FIVE animated emotes for Tier 3 Subs.
- There is a new Support-a-Streamer event from December 5 to January 2. Anyone steaming Minecraft, Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, or Forza Motorsport 2023 will be eligible. Anyone who gifts these streamers TWO subs will get 170 Minecraft Coins, a Halo Infinite Weapon Charm, and a Sea of Thieves Omen Pack.
- The Together for Good campaign raised $550,000 for charities worldwide through 8152 streamers who participated.
- Twitch is ending its streaming business in South Korea. In the blog post, the apparent cost to operate is ten times as much due to how Korean ISPs require payment for bandwidth usage. All Korean creators will have until February 27th, when they will no can no longer monetize or stream.
- Another executive, Chief Revenue Officer Walker Jacobs, has left Twitch. That's about seven prominent executives who left in 2023.
- Vertical clips are now in the discovery feed.
- Annual recaps are available today. In conjunction with the recap, they have launched a platformer-style game where you need to collect goat emotes.
- Three new global badges were launched this week: two for the Game Awards voting tool, and one for the 2023 Recap.
- A new global emote launched this week: GoatEmotey. It should have been called GoatyEmotey or GoatEmote.
- Twitch signed Nick Cannon to stream on the platform.
- A soft launch of the upcoming Sub Tokens happened this week.
- Guest Star is getting a favorite feature and a call-in button for those favorites when a creator is open to collabs.
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