Difference between revisions of "Twitch.tv"
(→Most Popular Streamers) |
m (added payment structure section) |
||
| Line 63: | Line 63: | ||
The mechanics of Twitch from a viewers standpoint are plentiful and is partly why streaming has been such a successful venture. First, viewers can chat live with the streamers they are watching and many times good streamers will interact personally with their audience rather than just go ahead play the game and ignore them. Second, viewers can donate money directly to the streamers. Within this donation, they can write a message that will appear live on screen for the whole chat and streamer to see. Along with donating, viewers can subscribe to the streamer's channel. Depending on how the streamer has organized his channel, subscribing can mean special benefits such as chat special chat emojis created by the streamer, subscriber chat only mode, and full video-on-demand access to past streams. | The mechanics of Twitch from a viewers standpoint are plentiful and is partly why streaming has been such a successful venture. First, viewers can chat live with the streamers they are watching and many times good streamers will interact personally with their audience rather than just go ahead play the game and ignore them. Second, viewers can donate money directly to the streamers. Within this donation, they can write a message that will appear live on screen for the whole chat and streamer to see. Along with donating, viewers can subscribe to the streamer's channel. Depending on how the streamer has organized his channel, subscribing can mean special benefits such as chat special chat emojis created by the streamer, subscriber chat only mode, and full video-on-demand access to past streams. | ||
| + | == Twitch Payment Structure == | ||
==Career Streamers== | ==Career Streamers== | ||
While it is very unlikely that someone can become wealthy off streaming 24/7, making a career out of live streaming has become more possible in recent years. One way to do is by making a partnership with Twitch. Requirements to do so are to have a growing audience, although this can vary as there isn't a set number. The streamer must broadcast three times a week on a consistent basis. And they must follow all rules of conduct, DMCA guidelines, and Terms of Service.<ref> [https://www.twitch.tv/partner/signup Twitch Partnership requirements]Retrieved on 16 Apr 2018.</ref> Some of the most famous career streamers can range from thousands of viewers to tens of thousands in some instances. Ninja, holds the record for most concurrent viewers reaching 628,000 when playing Fortnite with the rapper Drake.<ref>[https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/03/15/twitch-comments-on-the-record-breaking-drake-ninja-fortnite-stream/#130fd1da46c6 Article on Ninja's stream with Drake]Retrieved on 16 Apr 2018. </ref> | While it is very unlikely that someone can become wealthy off streaming 24/7, making a career out of live streaming has become more possible in recent years. One way to do is by making a partnership with Twitch. Requirements to do so are to have a growing audience, although this can vary as there isn't a set number. The streamer must broadcast three times a week on a consistent basis. And they must follow all rules of conduct, DMCA guidelines, and Terms of Service.<ref> [https://www.twitch.tv/partner/signup Twitch Partnership requirements]Retrieved on 16 Apr 2018.</ref> Some of the most famous career streamers can range from thousands of viewers to tens of thousands in some instances. Ninja, holds the record for most concurrent viewers reaching 628,000 when playing Fortnite with the rapper Drake.<ref>[https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/03/15/twitch-comments-on-the-record-breaking-drake-ninja-fortnite-stream/#130fd1da46c6 Article on Ninja's stream with Drake]Retrieved on 16 Apr 2018. </ref> | ||
Revision as of 18:42, 19 April 2019
| Community | Gamers, Craftsmen, Musicians, Entertainment |
| Membership | Free |
| Privacy | features that support privacy |
| Self Identity | Video Streaming Site |
| Features | Live Streaming, Music, Video ondemand |
| Status | |
| Launch Date | June 6, 2011 |
| Users | 45 million+ |
Twitch.tv is a platform used for live video streaming focusing mainly on video games. Twitch.tv is owned by Amazon. 'Streamers, the user's creating and performing the live video content, broadcast everything from video game play-throughs to talk shows to live tournament events. Since it was founded in 2011, Twitch has seen steady increases in numbers of new visitors and streamers, and in 2015, Twitch announced it was hosting over 1.5 million broadcasters and 100 million visitors each month. Although everything on Twitch is live, some streamers have shown or encouraged illegal activity. Also, there are rules against harassment of other individuals on Twitch, "Harassment, defamation, intimidation, raiding with malicious intent, or stalking of other persons or users, including Twitch Staff, Admins, or Global Moderators, is strictly prohibited" [1]. Even though there are moderators within Twitch many unethical things still go unnoticed.
Contents
History
Twitch.tv was founded in 2011; however, its roots go back to Justin.tv, formed in 2007 by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear. Originally, their concept of the website centered around Justin Kan wearing a hat with a video camera and microphone attached and going about broadcasting his everyday activities or as the termed was coined, a "Lifecast". Later, they divided the site into different categories with gaming becoming the most popular by far. With the unprecedented success of the gaming section on Justin.tv, the company decided to devote an entirely new website to this category naming it Twitch.tv, after the term "twitch gameplay", which refers a gamer's ultra quick reaction times to certain in-game scenarios. Ever since Twitch.tv has completely dominated the video game streaming and live video entertainment market.
Users, Audience, & Content
The average users on Twitch are predominately male and in between the ages of 18 and 34, and focus most of their attention to the video game viewing aspect of the site. However, the number of females starting to stream as greatly risen. While some female streamers notoriously tend to play on their sexuality and attractiveness to gain large viewer numbers, most female streamers are very serious gamers and evidence that females are very close to making a big splash into the esports arena.
For the most part, content on Twitch consists mostly of video game play throughs and live video game tournaments; however, recently there has been an increase in the amount of creative content. For example, pianoimproman is a Twitch streamer that plays piano songs that viewers request as well as some of his originals. He averages almost 17k views each time he goes live and is evidence of the surge of creative content on Twitch. Another area Twitch has started to break into is the live music streaming market. In 2015, Twitch created a new category for music. Within this category, viewers can find radio talk shows, coverage of live music festivals, as well as other musical productions broadcasts. There are also categories such as social eating, and IRL.
The Mechanics of Twitch
Twitch's homepage displays various games and streamers ranked by viewership. The homepage also now features a streamer chosen by Twitch for the day. Viewers can easily browse or search specifically for a streamer by game or by name.
The mechanics of Twitch from a viewers standpoint are plentiful and is partly why streaming has been such a successful venture. First, viewers can chat live with the streamers they are watching and many times good streamers will interact personally with their audience rather than just go ahead play the game and ignore them. Second, viewers can donate money directly to the streamers. Within this donation, they can write a message that will appear live on screen for the whole chat and streamer to see. Along with donating, viewers can subscribe to the streamer's channel. Depending on how the streamer has organized his channel, subscribing can mean special benefits such as chat special chat emojis created by the streamer, subscriber chat only mode, and full video-on-demand access to past streams.
Twitch Payment Structure
Career Streamers
While it is very unlikely that someone can become wealthy off streaming 24/7, making a career out of live streaming has become more possible in recent years. One way to do is by making a partnership with Twitch. Requirements to do so are to have a growing audience, although this can vary as there isn't a set number. The streamer must broadcast three times a week on a consistent basis. And they must follow all rules of conduct, DMCA guidelines, and Terms of Service.[2] Some of the most famous career streamers can range from thousands of viewers to tens of thousands in some instances. Ninja, holds the record for most concurrent viewers reaching 628,000 when playing Fortnite with the rapper Drake.[3]
Popular Streamers
Tyler Blevins (Ninja)
Popular streamer Richard Tyler Blevins (Ninja) has shown how lucrative a streaming career can be. In March of 2018, Ninja broke Twitch.Tv's concurrent viewer record at over 600,000 playing the game Fortnite. Ninja reported that he makes over $500,000 a month [4]. Ninja reached this viewer count by playing with popular music artist Drake. Ninja streams 5 days a week.[5]
Guy Beahm (Dr DisRespect)
Guy Beahm (known as Dr DisRespect) is a streamer and personality on Twitch.tv. He has gained over 2 million followers on his channel. During his stream Guy Beahm takes on an alter ego, wearing a wig and sunglasses. He advertises his subscriber group as "The Champions Club". Dr DisRespect has previously broken Twitch.tv's concurent viewer record at 388,000 viewers[6].
Popular Games
There are many games that are popularly streamed on Twitch.tv, one of which being Electronic Arts's FIFA 16. Users can live stream gameplay, allowing for games to be watched remotely by whoever decided to tune in. In addition, many computer games like League of Legends have many popular YouTubers that also host live streams through Twitch.tv.
Fortnite is a popular game that is streamed on Twitch.tv. On March 15th, 2018, Drake and professional video game player Tyler "Ninja" Blevins made history when they live streamed Fortnite and broke the record for the most streamed session of all time on Twitch.tv. They were joined by JuJu Smith-Schuster and rapper Travis Scott where they were watched by 628,000 people at once. Their game session was trending on Twitter. Twitch's SVP of marketing, Kate Jhaveriof, released a press statement the next day stating her satisfaction of Twitch's new record and reach into popular culture.
Ethical Implications
Harassment
In every single stream, there is a comments section for users. Most streams allow users to consistently talk and say whatever they want, but there are some banned words that you can customize yourself[7]. According to Twitch.tv, this capability would protect their personal information, protect against spambots, and Reduce toxicity in chat in conjunction with other common settings, chat bots and chat rules. In addition, popular streamers will often have moderators who will be in the chat and they have the ability give users timeouts, ban, unban, slow, slowoff, subscribers, subscribersoff, clear, R9KBeta, and R9KBetaOff[8]. Even though there are moderators with this much power in the chat some people can still get away with saying targeted insults to other users.
Discrimination
Due to the fact that Twitch subscribers have the benefit of using stickers and customized icons, there is discrimination within the Twitch platform against those that are unable to afford the subscription. In fact, streamers have the ability to change the chat box setting in such a way that only allows their subscribers to type in chat. This creates a situation that is unfair towards non-subscribers and is an ethic concern yet to be resolved.
References
- ↑ https://www.twitch.tv/p/rules-of-conduct
- ↑ Twitch Partnership requirementsRetrieved on 16 Apr 2018.
- ↑ Article on Ninja's stream with DrakeRetrieved on 16 Apr 2018.
- ↑ Andy Chalk, Fortnite streamer Ninja makes $500,000 per month, March 19 2018 pcgamer.com
- ↑ Twitch Metrics: Ninja twitchmetrics.com
- ↑ Julia Alexander, Dr. DisRespect sets hyuge new Twitch streaming record, beating Tyler1, Feb 6 2018 polygon.com
- ↑ http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/2100263-channel-banned-words
- ↑ http://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/659095-chat-moderation-commands
External links
coming soon
