Welcome to the Twitch Graveyard, a chronological timeline of when features were shut down by Twitch, inspired by Killed By Google. I've wanted to create this because I'm intrigued to see Twitch's feature progression and deprecation. This historical look back at how Twitch has changed and the features that existed over the years should offer insight into the motivations and goals at the time. If you think of anything I have missed, please message me on Twitter or via the Contact Form!
Last Updated: March 2024.
2024 Deaths
- ☠️ Watch Parties: April 2020 - April 2024
Watch Parties was a way for streamers to watch Amazon Prime shows on their Twitch channels with their community. Both the streamer and viewers had to have Prime to watch. Due to geographic limitations, and the Prime requirement, it made it difficult to include everyone in a community. Limited Beta started in late 2019; all Partners gained access in April 2020, and released to everyone in September 2020. Ultimately, it received very limited updates after launch and was shut down due to "declining usage." - ☠️ Reactions: November 2022 - March 2024
Reactions was a simple function that allowed viewers to "React" to the stream every five minutes with one of five prompts: Hype, Funny, Love, Whaaat? and Oh No! The idea was to give a voice to lurkers who didn't want to type in chat. Personal Guess: But I doubt it was used very much. - ☠️ Twitch Korea: June 2011 - February 2024
Since Twitch's inception, South Korea had been a key part of the esports and creator community on the platform. Unfortunately, on December 5, 2023, CEO Dan Clancy announced that Twitch's Korean business would be shut down due to Korea's "Sending Party Network Pays" structure. This meant that the cost to operate Twitch video delivery was ten times as costly. As such, they ended service to the region in late February 2024. - ☠️ Localized Twitter Support: October 2022 - January 2024
As Twitch worked to improve its support for creators (live chat, appeals portal), they also launched support via Twitter accounts in different regions, including Germany, LatAm + Spain, Japan, Brazil + Portugal, + France. As a result of layoffs profoundly impacting CX, these accounts announced they would no longer be monitored. - ☠️ Squad Stream: October 2018 - January 2024
Squad Stream was Twitch's attempt at making collaborative gameplay easier to watch. The function allowed viewers to watch up to four channels in a single window simultanesouly. Unfortunately, the function relied on having encoding, which meant it was limited to Partners. It was shut down in favor of Guest Star, which offers something similar. - ☠️ Switch App: November 2021 - January 2024
Twitch, in a reasonable effort to be more widely accessible, launched an official Nintendo Switch App in late 2021. However, the app was never particularly popular and lacked features such as viewing the stream chat, subscribing, or using the app to broadcast. The shutdown was made public in October 2023.
2023 Deaths
- ☠️ Hype Chats: September 2022 - November 2023.
Hype Chat was a new monetization experiment aiming to replace Bits. It started its life as "Elevated Chats." The feature allowed you to pay a flat rate in local currency to Pin a message to the top of the chat. The split was marketed as 70-30, but in reality it was less. It was deeply unpopular among the community, so Twitch shut down the tool and folded the function into Bits. - ☠️ Moments: February 2022 - October 2023
Moments were an alternate clipping function marking key events on someone's stream. Essentially, they wanted to create some kind of FOMO about missing out on something special. Baring that FOMO, though, Moments lacked any real utility or compelling use case. Understandably, they were shut down due to 'lack of use' despite only ever having been tested in limited beta. - ☠️ Twitch Studio for Mac: June 2020 to September 2023
Twitch Studio for Mac brought the first-party streaming software to Mac users after community feedback requested it. Unfortunately, according to Twitch, usage has remained low, accounting for at most 0.5% of streamers. It was shut down on September 19th, 2023. - ☠️ The Mature Tag: February 2014 - May 2023
It was launched to allow broadcasters to identify to potential audiences if their content was inappropriate, may contain nudity, or other mature topics. It was never actively enforced and was confusing to many. It was replaced in May 2023 with new Content Labels. - ☠️ Front Page Partner Requests: 2013 - May 2023
For nearly a decade, Twitch Partners could request a front-page placement by contacting Partner Support. However, in 2020, that shifted away from general requests to requiring three months of consistent self-paid subscribers (200+). In May 2023, Twitch opted to sunset requests entirely. - ☠️ Soundtrack by Twitch: September 2020 - July 2023
Soundtrack by Twitch was launched in response to DMCA issues that plagued Twitch during the summer of 2020. The Spotify-like clone was not widely used as better options were already available on the market. This is the SECOND time Twitch tried launching a music tool for creators. (See Music Library below.) - ☠️ Community Partnerships Programs: January 2022 - May 2023
Twitch Partnerships launched a series of webinars, workshops, and networking opportunities hosted by staff and attended by various Twitch Partners. In September, these were renamed Community Partnerships Programs but after layoffs gutted the Partnership teams, it appears these programs have ended. - Twitch Women's Alliance: March 2021 - April 2023
The Twitch Women's Alliance was a Twitch Team launched by the platform during Women's History Month 2021. The idea was to unite creators under a common banner for promotion, front-page shelves, opportunities, and other benefits. The Women's Alliance was shut down in 2023 as a new "Unity Guild" structure and was developed featuring community leaders. - ☠️ IRC Chat Commands: 2013 - February 2023
To better align Twitch Chat into the Twitch API, IRC Chat commands are being deprecated to migrate to the API. After February 18, 2023, commands run on IRC will no longer function - a decision that has received mixed reactions. - ☠️ Showcase: October 2022 - January 2023
Showcase was an experimental interactive tool that allowed users to create a few custom social media assets. Styled in a Windows 95 wrapper, it was an attempt by Twitch to make creating assets such as stream schedules, going live, and other social content easier. In January 2023, access was removed without notice.
2022 Deaths
- ☠️ Amazon Music Extension: August 2019 - November 2022
The Amazon Music Extension was a tool that allowed streamers to play copyrighted music (NOT heard on stream) but instead offered an overlay that would allow their community to click and listen. It required both parties to have Amazon Music. In light of DMCA issues, it was an option for creators - although it was not widely promoted. Usage was minimal, and it was discontinued on November 1st, 2022. - ☠️ Hosts: July 2014 - October 2022
Launched in 2014 to share your favorite creators on your channel, Hosts were a community staple. Running the /host command after a stream ended allowed creators to send their community to another channel. (Raids were launched in 2017, which improved this functionality.) In September 2022, it was announced that Hosts were being removed due to viewer confusion. - ☠️ Creator Exclusivity: July 2011 - 2022 + 2023
Since the inception of the Partner Program, Partnered streamers' live content had to be exclusive to Twitch. The Affiliate program, launched in 2017, also limited creators to live exclusivity (no multi-streaming). In August 2022, Twitch announced they would no longer enforce that part of the contract. Creators could now stream to any platform, including multi-streaming to 'mobile first' platforms. In 2023, that 'mobile first' restriction was also rescinded, allowing creators to multistream anywhere. - ☠️ Twitch Identity Tags: May 2021 - August 2022
After a year-long fight by the trans community for a Trans tag, Twitch finally acquiesced and announced that 350 new tags would be launched. Since then, hundreds of others have been added. But, with the announcement of freeform tags, the centralized control over tags by Twitch appears* to be going away, rendering the Identity Tag launch on its deathbed. - ☠️ Reruns: January 2018 - June 2022
Reruns allowed users to re-broadcast any of their previous content. This included the ability to rerun VOD playlists. In June, functionality changed, and VODs on Twitch were no longer the source of rerun content; instead, having to broadcast them from your software of choice AS a rerun. The change was because reruns were only used by 0.2% of streamers. - ☠️ Twitchverse: January 2020 - June 2022*
Twitchverse was a digital fish tank filled with Partner fish. Partners could add and keep their fish in the tank by feeding it emotes. Simultaneously, a live display of Twitchverse was being broadcast at Twitch HQ. The live feed went offline in mid-June 2022; *however, Twitch HQ's tank is still live. - ☠️ Friends: May 2016 - May 2022
The Friends feature was launched in 2016 to add social features to the platform. Once you had a Friend, you could see their online status on the platform - Online, Idle or Offline. As there was no intrinsic reason to be friends with people, having killed off nearly all social features - everyone lost their Friends in May 2022. - ☠️ Activity Sharing: October 2016 - May 2022
Activity Sharing was a social feature that let you share who you were watching with your Friends. You could toggle it on and off with your platform status. With the death of the Friends feature, this function went with it. - ☠️ Bits Auto-Refill: November 2019 - May 2022
Bits Auto-Refill allowed people to automatically refill their Bits balance when it reached a certain low level. The feature was unexpectedly shut down in 2022 based on Community Feedback. - ☠️ Views: 2013 - April 2022
Views was a metric that displayed a public count of how many people had visited your Twitch page. In April 2022, Twitch announced it would remove it as the stat was 'unreliable' as it only counted views from Desktop and did not include mobile or other viewing surfaces. - ☠️ Curse + Twitch Desktop App: September 2016 - April 2022
In August 2016, Twitch acquired the communication platform Curse. In September of the same year, it began to offer cross-platform syncing. This led to August 2017, when it was rebranded as the Twitch Desktop App. The app served as a launch point for many other products and features. - ☠️ Event-Based Drops: August 2020 - April 2022
Event-Based Drops was a system for game developers to add unique Twitch-based drops (cosmetics) as certain conditions were met in-game. The hope was to reward communities for watching a big moment happen in-game (e.g., a streamer beating a boss). Due to a lack of interest and high complexity, it was shut down in early 2022. - ☠️ Pizza Time, Silent Reading, Character Creation, Chores and Odd Jobs, Literally Just Chatting: April 2022 - April 2022
On April Fools, 2022, Twitch launched five new categories. These were real categories that you could stream from. However, they were not long-lived, and ~7 days later, the categories were no longer accessible. - ☠️ iOS Sub Tokens: October 2019 - March 2022
iOS Sub Tokens enabled people to subscribe on Apple devices. They were phased out in March after subscribing directly became available to Twitch users. (This project was later brought back to offer Sub Tokens as part of sponsorships.) - ☠️ Rituals: October 2017 - January 2022
Twitch Rituals was a new viewer engagement tool that encouraged new viewers to post an emote in chat, to let the community know they were new. Rituals were shut down in January 2022, and a new "Community Introduction" system was launched.
2021 Deaths
- ☠️ Prime Gaming Loot Gifting: September 2019 - July 2021
Twitch Prime Loot Gifting (later Prime Gaming) was a feature that allowed you to share select items from your Twitch Prime monthly rewards. Those with Prime could share 3x their items, which would then be distributed randomly in the chat. Unceremoniously, it was removed in July, according to a Help article's last update. - ☠️ Amazon Blacksmith: September 2017 - July 2021
Amazon Blacksmith was a way for creators to sell Amazon products and earn commission from those sales. Blacksmith was initially launched in 2017 as "Gear on Amazon" but was improved and renamed in October 2018. The feature allowed you to show off the gear you use to stream and integrations with games to sell other related products, such as during E3. - ☠️ Watch Ads for Bits: October 2016 - June 2021
Twitch launched the Cheer system in 2016, and to help people get more acquainted with Bits, the Watch Ads for Bits system was created. In exchange for watching a 30-second ad, you would get between 5 and 100 Bits. However, in 2018 it became unreliable and was officially removed in 2021. - ☠️ Email Your Subscribers: Early 2017 - May 2021
Twitch launched the ability for Partners to email their subscribers as an additional way to communicate with them outside of Twitch. Affiliates got this functionality when the Affiliate program was created. It was initially meant to be shut down for a couple of months while they worked to prevent spicy links from being shared, but it never returned. - ☠️ /me Colors: July 2014 - April 2021
The command /me has been a staple command since the beginning of Twitch. Doing /me up until April 2021, changed the color of your message to match your username. Twitch killed this functionality, opting to make the feature italics to 'reduce the potential for abuse.' - ☠️ Versus: September 2020 - January 2021
Versus by Twitch was a tool aimed at making hosting esports competitions easier. Giving players and organizers a way to communicate, sign up, and create brackets while allowing viewers to find and see results. It launched as a Beta with a dedicated Discord but shut down soon afterward. The last note I can find about it is January 2021.
2020 Deaths
- ☠️ Twitch Sings: April 2019 - December 2020
Twitch Sings was a karaoke-style game that allowed creators to sing along to music licensed by Twitch. It featured interactive gaming elements, including chat-based engagement, challenges, and a scoring system. It also allowed collaboration in the form of duets with other singers. Ultimately, it needed to be more popular to justify the cost of music licensing. - ☠️ Premieres: January 2018 - April 2020
Premieres was a short-lived video product aimed at making uploaded content more engaging. You would upload and schedule a 'first viewing' event and get your community to watch it together in chat. It was shut down due to lack of use. - ☠️ Music Library: April 2015 - 2020(?)
The Twitch Music Library was a distant predecessor to Twitch Soundtrack. It offered streamers 1000+ songs cleared for usage on stream, which would not result in DMCA or muted audio. There was no official end date for the Library, but the last reference I can find was in 2020.
2019 Deaths
- ☠️ Commenting on VODs: May 2017 - November 2019
When Twitch launched Uploads in 2016, there was no way to comment on uploads. That functionality would be added in May 2017. Several months later, in September, commenting on VODs was added as part of a chat update (which also included semi-threaded replies). This came to an end as a result of changing priorities. - ☠️ Rooms: February 2018 - October 2019
Rooms was a social feature launched to allow communities to have gated chat rooms for Moderators or Subscribers. It also let you create custom rooms, promoted as a feature for things like spoilers. The feature was not widely used and shut down on October 30, 2019. - ☠️ Events: March 2017 - Q4 2019
Events were a way to create a schedule-like system for your big streaming events. They had their own tab on channel profiles, allowing people to set reminders or add them to their calendars. The feature was phased out sometime in Q4 2019 but returned as part of a more extensive channel page overhaul in May 2020. - ☠️ FreshStock: May 2017 - September 2019
FreshStock was a live show by Twitch's in-house production studio that aimed to cross live content with sneaker culture. Hosted by a combination of staffers and guests, the show ran four seasons before being canceled. - ☠️ Twitch Weekly: March 2014 - July 2019
Twitch Weekly was a Twitch-run community news show that covered everything going on at Twitch. Initially hosted by DjWheat and later cohosted by Anna Prosser, the show grew from a standard news format to a full-on community production. It covered news from Twitch, featured community, interviews, clips, special events, and more. - ☠️ Communities: February 2017 - July 2019
Twitch Communities was a discovery tool aimed at "helping streamers connect to the most relevant audiences and help viewers discover streams that fit their interests." Communities acted as a targeted category system (a precursor to tags). Streamers continue lamenting its passing, which occurred in mid-2019 as the Front Page Discovery system was introduced. Communities also had trusted members deputized to remove people streaming to the category incorrectly. - ☠️ Channel Feeds: July 2016 - July 2019
Channel Feeds was released widely in the summer of 2016 to offer a timeline communication tool on creators' channels. Initially, it allowed people to leave Emote reactions, added comments, and later played a part in Pulse. It was shut down as Twitch changed the Front Page discovery system in 2019. - ☠️ Clip Champ/Power Clipper: February 2018 - Spring 2019
The Clip Champ badge was awarded to people who created four clips over a month and achieved 50 combined views of those clips. It was renamed the Power Clipper in June of that year. While no announcement was made, and the badge still exists on Twitch, the functionality was phased out sometime in the spring of 2019. - ☠️ Recaps: April 2019
Announced at Twitchcon Europe 2019, Recaps was going to be an automatically generated Highlight Reel of your streams. The video for the Recaps would pull from Clips and other signals (chat engagement) to create the recaps - and allow creators to edit them. Slated for a beta test in June 2019, they never came out and were never mentioned again.
2018 Deaths
- ☠️ Global Moderators: December 2014 - December 2018
Twitch was community-moderated from the beginning, with early Admins and Global Moderators being unpaid volunteers. The primary difference between Admins and Global Moderators was that Admins responded to user-submitted cases against channels, whereas Global Moderators were just vetted community watchdogs. As time passed, more and more Global Moderators became full-time Twitch Admin contractors. The Global Moderator program was discontinued in 2018. Within a year, the Admin role was discontinued, and the contractors were hired as full-time staff to form a new Safety Operations team. - ☠️ Game Purchases: April 2017 - November 2018
As Twitch sought to build out unique monetization methods, it became a Game Seller. This feature shared 5% of revenue with the Partner whose channel games were purchased from. Games could be downloaded via the Twitch Desktop App or services like Uplay. It did not generate enough revenue, so it was shut down. - ☠️ Crates: April 2017 - November 2018
Crates was a Twitch loot system that rewarded you when you purchased games. The rewards were in-game items or in the form of Twitch Bits, Badges, and Emotes. With the closure of the Games Store, the Crates system was shut down. - ☠️ Creative Category: October 2015 - September 2018
The original Creative category was sparked by Bob Ross and aimed to unite and support Creative streamers. It offered a dedicated landing page, carousel, and contextual hashtags. The Creative category was relaunched in October 2021 but lacks staff support, a carousel, a quick partner program, and the culture that had originally attracted streamers to the Creative category. - ☠️ IRL Category: December 2016 - September 2018
The IRL Category was launched in December 2016 to give non-gaming content its own home. Spurred by the success of Pokemon Go streamers, IRL was Twitch's first foray outside of Gaming + Creative. The category would later be split into several new categories, including Just Chatting, which became a rebranded IRL. - ☠️ Ad Free with Twitch Prime: September 2016 - August 2018
Twitch Prime (now Prime Gaming) was launched at Twitchcon in 2016. One of the core features of the Amazon Prime-associated product was Ad-Free viewing across all of Twitch. In August 2018, it was announced that the benefit would end as ad revenue was needed. - ☠️ Roadmap: June 2018 - H2 2018.
Twitch announced a plan to share roadmap details through Trello with the community. This included details about live projects, ones in progress, and features in planning. The idea was to give creators insight into what Twitch was working on to ensure they were better prepared for changes. However, it was quickly discontinued. - ☠️ Pulse: March 2017 - July 2018
Pulse was a Discovery and Social feature that added a timeline-like system to the front page. For viewers, creator Channel Feed posts would get shared in Pulse, alongside other people they followed, similar to a Facebook feed. Feedback from streamers ultimately led to it shutting down. - ☠️ Twitch 10M Hours Trophy: April 2018
Only ever mentioned at PAX East 2018, Aureylian revealed a new trophy for streamers who had garnered 10M hours watched on their channels. There is no other reference to this in any publicly available documentation. As such, it lived and died for a day. - ☠️ Twitch Inbox + Messages: ~2013 - March 2018
Before Whispers, Twitch had a Message and Inbox system. Messages allowed you to communicate with people directly on the platform in an email-lite style system. It was removed in 2018, leading to some concept images of what could have been. - ☠️ VOD Playlists: September 2015 - January 2018
VOD Playlists was the precursor to Reruns. They allowed you to create playlists of your previous VODs and run them 24/7 on your channel. The videos played automatically but would pause if you hosted a channel. - ☠️ Pinned Cheers: November 2016 - 2018
Pinned Cheers automatically pinned the highest cheerers' message to the top of the chat. If someone else cheered more than that, their message replaced that one, creating a feedback loop of ever-bigger cheers. This was a precursor to the Bits Leaderboard that exists today. - ☠️ TwitchPresents: 2015 - 2018
TwitchPresents was a Twitch-owned channel best known for airing marathons of popular shows. Marathons included Pokemon (2018), Inspector Gadget (2018), Power Rangers (2017), Yugioh (2017), RWBY (2017), and Bob Ross (2015). Since then, the channel is now a Shopping Network-type stream a couple of times a year called Pog Picks.
2016 Deaths
- ☠️ Bookmarks: May 2013 - August 2016
Twitch Bookmarks allowed users to bookmark particular moments of a VOD that they could quickly jump back into. While there's no official end date, once Clips were made available in 2016, there was no more need for Bookmarks. - ☠️ Top Broadcaster Program: June 2015 - 2016
The Twitch Top Broadcaster Program was a promotion to reward top broadcasters for their success. Broadcasters with an average viewership of 3000 would receive a unique Twitch track jacket, VIP party access, and corporate partnerships.
2015 Deaths
- ☠️ Twitch Hall of Fame: September 2015
At Twitchcon 2015, Twitch launched the Hall of Fame as a way to recognize achievements on the platform. The only inductees into the Twitch Hall of Fame are the emote Kappa, the social experiment Twitch Plays Pokemon, and the streamer LethalFrag. Inductees received a Twitch Hall of Fame Plaque,
2014 Deaths
- ☠️ Unlimited VOD Storage: June 2011 - August 2014
Initially, Twitch allowed unlimited VOD storage. On August 27, 2014, the system, which enables 14 days of VOD storage (60 days for Turbo Subscribers and Partners), was launched in its place. - ☠️ Justin.TV (Service): October 2007 - August 2014
Justin.tv was the startup from which Twitch spun out. Gaming performed so well on Justin.tv, that they created a new site for it - Twitch.tv. With Twitch's growing success, they shut down Justin.tv in August 2014 and were quickly acquired by Amazon later that month. - ☠️ Twitch Live Annotations: July 2014 - ?
Twitch Live Annotations allowed you to let people on YouTube videos know you were live on Twitch. I don't know when they were phased out (or if it was by YouTube themselves).
Experiments that Never Officially Launched
- ☠️ Making Cheering Easier, aka Super Cheers: April 2022 - May 2022
An experiment to make cheering easier was conducted in the spring of 2022. The experiment aimed to offer whole-dollar cheers instead of the Bits system. Streamers who were selected to be involved had their Bits disabled on their channel. This system offered whole Cheers of $1, $5, $10, $50, and $100. Many involved in the test expressed their discontent on Twitter about not being able to opt out. - ☠️ Boost This Stream Channel Points: December 2020 - 2022?
Boost This Stream was a discovery-type system that allowed communities to use their channel points to achieve a goal. If they achieved the goal, the streamer's channel would be featured on the Front Page for a limited time. - ☠️ Boost This Stream Paid: September 2021 - April 2022
Boost This Stream didn't end with Channel Points and started testing a Paid version. This feature offered the same function as the free channel points test but put it behind a paywall of $1 per 1000 impressions. - ☠️ Boost Train: March 2022 - April 2022
Boost Train was a continuation of the Boost system, previously tested as a free Channel Points feature and later a paid test. Boost Train offered the same functionality but tied it to the Hype Train. Higher Hype Train success meant more front-page impressions. It was shut down after testers used it to porn onto the Front Page. - ☠️ Chants: May 2021 - February 2022
Chants gave Mods and Creators the ability to help people spam the chat with the same message. While popular, Twitch shut down the experiment because "we observed negative impacts to minutes watched for significant groups of creators." - ☠️ Bits 2.0 Cheering Experience: May 2021 - August 2021
Twitch experimented with some unique Cheer functionality. The three Cheer interactions allowed you to embed an image in chat, offer larger colorful text, and rain bits over the chat. The experiment ended without any further release. - ☠️ Ad Free for Partners: January 2021 - March 2021
Ad Free for Partners was a feature in testing in early 2021. Announced in the Partner Discord, it was meant to remove Ads as a perk for being a Partner. In the following months, it was scaled back (only when searching for a raid) and ultimately removed as a feature. - ☠️ Paid Celebrations: April 2020 - November 2020
Celebrations was a paid feature test in 2020 that created Fireworks-like effects on a stream. The feature gave Twitch an excessive 50% cut of the total cost. Later, Celebrations were folded into Hype Trains, where they still exist today.
Announcements with No Launch Yet, Waiting to See
☠️ Q&A Tool
☠️ Sound Bites: First Party Sound Alerts
☠️ Emotes in Stream Titles
☠️ Channel Level Chat Warnings
Anything missing?
I've done my best to research and document the various launches that no longer exist. But I'd love to update this if you know about others! Please send me a message on Twitter or via the Contact Form!
