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Twitch is an American video
live streaming Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...
service that focuses on
video game live streaming The live streaming of video games is an activity where people broadcast themselves playing games to a live audience online. The practice became popular in the mid-2010s on the US-based site Twitch, before growing to YouTube, Facebook, China-ba ...
, including broadcasts of
esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and " in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of
Amazon.com, Inc Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...
. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via
video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...
. The games shown on Twitch's homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games (RTS), fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters. The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of its general-interest counterpart. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers, and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth-largest source of peak
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv's parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus – Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014. That month, the service was acquired by
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...
for 970 million, which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company's subscription service
Amazon Prime Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one- ...
. Twitch acquired
Curse A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, ...
in 2016, an operator of online video gaming communities and introduced means to purchase games through links on streams along with a program allowing streamers to receive commissions on the sales of games that they play. By 2015, Twitch had more than 100 million viewers per month. In 2017, Twitch remained the leading live streaming video service for video games in the US, and had an advantage over
YouTube Gaming YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most vis ...
, which shut down its standalone app in May 2019. , it had 3 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users, with 1.4 million average
concurrent user In computer science, the number of concurrent users (sometimes abbreviated CCU) for a resource in a location, with the location being a computing network or a single computer, refers to the total number of people simultaneously accessing or using t ...
s. , Twitch had over 27,000 partner channels.


History


Founding and initial growth (2007–2013)

When Justin.tv was launched in 2007 by
Justin Kan Justin Kan (born July 16, 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder of live video platforms Justin.tv and Twitch, as well as the mobile social video application Socialcam. He is also the cofounder and former ...
and
Emmett Shear Emmett Shear (born 1983) is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder of live video platforms Justin.tv and Twitch. He is the chief executive officer of Twitch and is also a part-time partner at venture capital firm Y ...
, the site was divided into several content categories. The gaming category grew especially fast, and became the most popular content on the site. In June 2011, the company decided to spin off the gaming content as TwitchTV, inspired by the term ''
twitch gameplay Twitch gameplay is a type of video gameplay scenario that tests a player's response time. Action games such as shooters, sports, multiplayer online battle arena, and fighting games often contain elements of twitch gameplay. For example, firs ...
''. It launched officially in public beta on June 6, 2011. Since then, Twitch has attracted more than 35 million unique visitors a month. Twitch had about 80 employees in June 2013, which increased to 100 by December 2013. The company was headquartered in San Francisco's Financial District. Twitch has been supported by significant investments of
venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
, with in 2012 (on top of originally raised for Justin.tv), and in 2013. Investors during three rounds of fund raising leading up to the end of 2013 included
Draper Associates Timothy Cook Draper (born June 11, 1958) is an American venture capital investor, and founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ),
, Bessemer Venture Partners and
Thrive Capital Thrive Capital is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. It focuses on media and internet investments. The firm was founded by Joshua Kushner who is also co-founder of Oscar Health and minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. ...
. In addition to the influx of venture funding, it was believed in 2013 that the company had become profitable. Especially since the shutdown of its direct competitor Own3d.tv in early 2013, Twitch has become the most popular e-sports streaming service by a large margin, leading some to conclude that the website has a "near monopoly on the market". Competing video services, such as
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
and
Dailymotion Dailymotion is a French video-sharing technology platform owned by Vivendi. North American launch partners included Vice Media, Bloomberg and Hearst Digital Media. It is among the earliest known platforms to support HD (720p) resolution video. ...
, began to increase the prominence of their gaming content to compete, but have had a much smaller impact so far. As of mid-2013, there were over 43 million viewers on Twitch monthly, with the average viewer watching an hour and a half a day. By February 2014, Twitch was the fourth largest source of Internet traffic during peak times in the United States, behind
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
,
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
, and
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
. Twitch made up 1.8% of total US Internet traffic during peak periods. In late 2013, particularly due to increasing viewership, Twitch had issues with
lag Lag, or similar, may refer to: Lag * Łąg, Poland * Lag (company), a French guitar maker * Lag (cue sports), a brief pre-game competition to determine which player will go first * Latency (engineering), a slower response time in computing, commu ...
and low
frame rate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ca ...
s in Europe. Twitch has subsequently added new servers in the region. Also in order to address these problems, Twitch implemented a new video system shown to be more efficient than the previous system. Initially, the new video system was criticized by users because it caused a significant stream delay, interfering with broadcaster-viewer interaction. Twitch staff said that the increased delay was likely temporary and at the time, was an acceptable tradeoff for the decrease in buffering.


Growth, YouTube acquisition speculation (2014)

On February 10, 2014, Twitch's parent company (Justin.tv, Inc.) was renamed Twitch Interactive, reflecting the increased prominence of the service over Justin.tv as the company's main business. That same month, a stream known as Twitch Plays ''Pokémon'', a
crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digit ...
attempt to play ''
Pokémon Red (an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise. In terms of ...
'' using a system translating chat commands into game controls, went viral. By February 17, the channel reached over 6.5 million total views and averaged concurrent viewership between 60 and 70 thousand viewers with at least 10% participating. Vice President of Marketing Matthew DiPietro praised the stream as "one more example of how video games have become a platform for entertainment and creativity that extends WAY beyond the original intent of the game creator. By merging a video game, live video and a participatory experience, the broadcaster has created an entertainment hybrid custom made for the Twitch community. This is a wonderful proof of concept that we hope to see more of in the future." Beginning with its 2014 edition, Twitch was made the official live streaming platform of the
Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo or Electronic Entertainment Experience in 2021) is a trade event for the video game industry. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) organizes and presents E3, which many developers, publisher ...
. On May 18, 2014, ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' first reported that
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
had reached a preliminary deal to acquire Twitch through its
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
subsidiary for approximately . On August 5, 2014, the original Justin.tv site suddenly ceased operations, citing a need to focus resources entirely on Twitch. On August 6, 2014, Twitch introduced an updated archive system, with multi-platform access to highlights from past broadcasts by a channel, higher quality video, increased server backups, and a new Video Manager interface for managing past broadcasts and compiling "highlights" from broadcasts that can also be exported to
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
. Due to technological limitations and resource requirements, the new system contained several regressions; the option to archive complete broadcasts on an indefinite basis ("save forever") was removed, meaning that they can only be retained for a maximum of 14 days, or 60 for partners and Turbo subscribers. While compiled highlights can be archived indefinitely, they were limited to two hours in length. In addition, Twitch introduced a copyright fingerprinting system that would mute audio in archived clips if it detected a copyrighted song in the stream.


Amazon subsidiary (2014–present)

On August 25, 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch Interactive for in an
all-cash deal In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to ...
. Sources reported that the rumoured Google deal had fallen through and allowed Amazon to make the bid, with ''
Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...
'' reporting that Google had backed out of the deal due to potential
antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
concerns surrounding it and its existing ownership of YouTube. The acquisition closed on September 25, 2014.
Take-Two Interactive Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City and founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993. The company owns two major publishing labels, Rockstar Games and 2K, which operate internal g ...
, which owned a 2% stake at the time of the acquisition, made a windfall of $22 million. Under Amazon, Shear continued as
chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of Twitch Interactive, with Sara Clemens added to the executive team as
chief operating officer A chief operating officer or chief operations officer, also called a COO, is one of the highest-ranking executive positions in an organization, composing part of the "C-suite". The COO is usually the second-in-command at the firm, especially if t ...
in January 2018. Shear touted the
Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments, on a metered pay-as-you-go basis. These cloud computing web services provide d ...
platform as an "attractive" aspect of the deal, and that Amazon had "built relationships with the big players in media", which could be used to the service's advantage—particularly in the realm of content licensing. The purchase of Twitch marked the third recent video gaming–oriented acquisition by Amazon, which had previously acquired the developers
Reflexive Entertainment Reflexive Entertainment was a video game developer based in Lake Forest, California. The company was cofounded by Lars Brubaker, Ernie Ramirez, James C. Smith and Ion Hardie in 1997. They developed nineteen games independently (for Microsoft W ...
and
Double Helix Games Double Helix Games was an American video game developer based in Irvine, California, founded in October 2007 through the merger of The Collective and Shiny Entertainment, two studios owned by Foundation 9 Entertainment. Double Helix was acquir ...
. On December 9, 2014, Twitch announced it had acquired GoodGame Agency, an organisation that owns the
esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
teams
Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses (EG) is an American esports organization based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, ''Call of Duty'', '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', ''Dota 2'', ''Fortni ...
and
Alliance An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
. In March 2015, Twitch reset all user passwords and disabled all connections to external
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
and YouTube accounts after the service reported that someone had gained "unauthorised access" to the user information of some Twitch users. In June 2016, Twitch added a new feature known as "Cheering", a special form of emoticon purchased as a
microtransaction Microtransactions, often abbreviated as mtx, are a business model where users can purchase virtual goods with micropayments. Microtransactions are often used in free-to-play games to provide a revenue source for the developers. While microtransact ...
using an in-site currency known as "Bits". Bits are bought using
Amazon Payments Amazon Pay is an online payments processing service owned by Amazon. Launched in 2007, Amazon Pay uses the consumer base of Amazon.com and focuses on giving users the option to pay with their Amazon accounts on external merchant websites. As of ...
, and cheers act as donations to the channel. Users also earn badges within a channel based on how much they have cheered. On August 16, 2016, Twitch acquired
Curse, Inc. Curse is a network of gaming websites. The company is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, and has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Brighton, and Berlin. Curse initially focused on offering mods for various video games. A ...
, an operator of online video gaming communities and gaming-oriented VoIP software. In December 2016, GoodGame Agency was divested by Amazon to their respective members due to
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
concerns. On September 30, 2016, Twitch announced Twitch Prime, a service which provides premium features that are exclusive to users who have an active
Amazon Prime Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one- ...
subscription. This included advertising-free streaming, monthly offers of free add-on content ("Game Loot"), and game discounts. Games included with the game loot rewards were ''
Apex Legends ''Apex Legends'' is a free-to-play Battle royale game, battle royale-hero shooter game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in February 2019, for Nintendo ...
'', ''
Legends of Runeterra ''Legends of Runeterra'' (''LoR'' is a 2020 digital collectible card game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by the physical collectible card game ''Magic: The Gathering'', the developers sought to create a game within the same ge ...
'', ''
FIFA Ultimate Team ''FIFA'', also known as ''FIFA Football'' and to be rebranded as ''EA Sports FC'' from 2023, is a series of association football video games developed and released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. As of 2011, the ''FIFA'' fr ...
'', ''
Teamfight Tactics ''Teamfight Tactics'' (''TFT'') is an auto battler game developed and published by Riot Games. The game is a spinoff of ''League of Legends'' and is based on ''Dota Auto Chess'', where players compete online against seven other opponents by buil ...
'', '' Mobile Legends: Bang Bang'', ''
Doom Eternal ''Doom Eternal'' is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. The sequel to ''Doom'' (2016), and the sixth main game in the ''Doom'' series, it was released on March 20, 2020, for Windows, PlaySt ...
'', and more. In December 2016, Twitch announced a semi-automated chat moderation tool (), which uses
natural language processing Natural language processing (NLP) is an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics, computer science, and artificial intelligence concerned with the interactions between computers and human language, in particular how to program computers to pro ...
and
machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...
to set aside potentially unwanted content for human review. In February 2017, Twitch announced the Twitch Game Store, a digital distribution platform that would expose digital purchases of games within the site's browsing interface. When streaming games available on the store, partnered channels could display a referral link to purchase the game—receiving a 5% commission. Users also received a "Twitch Crate" on every purchase, which included Bits and a collection of random chat emotes. In August 2017, Twitch announced it had acquired video indexing platform ClipMine. On August 20, 2018, Twitch announced that it will no longer offer advertising-free access to the entire service to Amazon Prime subscribers, with this privilege requiring the separate "Twitch Turbo" subscription or an individual channel subscription. This privilege ended for new customers effective September 14, 2018, and for existing customers October 2018. In October 2018, Twitch announced Amazon Blacksmith, a new extension allowing broadcasters to configure displays of products associated with their streams with Amazon affiliate links. On November 27, 2018, Twitch discontinued the Game Store service, citing that it did not generate as much additional revenue for partners as they hoped, and new revenue opportunities such as Amazon Blacksmith. Users retain access to their purchased games. Twitch acquired the Internet Games Database (IGDB), a user-driven website similar in functionality to
Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...
(IMDb) to catalog details of video games in September 2019. Twitch plans to use the database service to improve its own internal search features and help users find games they are interested in. On September 26, 2019, Twitch unveiled a new logo and updated site design. The design is accompanied by a new advertising campaign, "You're already one of us", which will seek to promote the platform's community members. Twitch began signing exclusivity deals with high-profile streamers in December 2019. Twitch introduced a Safety Advisory Council in May 2020, made up from streamers, academics, and
think tanks A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmental or ...
, with a goal to develop guidelines for moderation, work-life balance, and safeguarding the interests of marginalized communities for the platform. In August 2020, Twitch Prime was renamed Prime Gaming, aligning it closer with the Amazon Prime family of services. In May 2021, Twitch announced that it would introduce over 350 new tags to categorize streams, including finer tags for
gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the i ...
,
sexual identity Sexual identity is how one thinks of oneself in terms of to whom one is romantically and/or sexually attracted.
''Sex ...
, and Disability, disabilities, as well as tags for other types of themes (such as virtual streamers). The disability and LGBT-oriented tags were developed in consultation with the video game accessibility charities AbleGamers and
SpecialEffect SpecialEffect is a charity based in the United Kingdom founded in 2007. It specialises in helping physically disabled people, specifically children, play video games. The organisation works with developers to create specialised game control d ...
, and the LGBT organizations
GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portrayals ...
and
The Trevor Project The Trevor Project is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1998. Focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, they offer a toll-free telephone number wher ...
. On October 6, 2021, an anonymous hacker reportedly leaked "the entirety" of Twitch, including its source code of the Twitch client and APIs, and details of the payouts made to almost 2.4 million streamers since August 2019. The user posted a 128GB torrent link to 4chan and said that the leak, which includes source code from almost 6,000 internal
Git Git () is a distributed version control system: tracking changes in any set of files, usually used for coordinating work among programmers collaboratively developing source code during software development. Its goals include speed, data in ...
repositories, is also "part one" of a larger release. The leak also included details of plans for a digital storefront under the codename of "Vapor" meant to be a competitor to
Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
along with details on payment received by streamers for their work on Twitch. Twitch verified they had suffered a data leak which they attributed to a server misconfiguration used by a "malicious third party". While Twitch found no indication of login credentials or credit card information to have been taken in the breach, the company reset all stream keys as a precaution. On August 23, 2022, Twitch announced that it would no longer enforce its exclusivity agreement, allowing Twitch streamers to livestream on other streaming platforms. The announcement noted that simulcasting on Twitch and other "Twitch-like" streaming platforms was still prohibited; however, an exemption to the simulcasting restriction was applied to short-form streaming platforms such as
Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
and
TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...
. Despite the specific mention of restrictions on simulcasting, former Twitch employees noted that Twitch would likely not enforce the restriction, as doing so would be very difficult, and they had not been enforcing it for several months prior to the announcement. After the announcement, many high-profile streamers who were limited by exclusivity, such as Ninja and Pokimane, started streaming on other platforms. On September 21, 2022, Twitch announced it would be reducing the subscription revenue earned by large streamers. Though most streamers get a 50% of revenue from subscriptions, some larger streamers have premium subscription terms, which give them 70% of subscription revenue. The new change, set to take effect on June 1, 2023, would mean premium streamers would keep 70% of the first $100,000 earned from subscriptions, after which their cut would be lowered to 50%. The announcement came after Twitch declined a popular request for all streamers to have 70% subscription revenue, which many noted is the same revenue already offered by YouTube. Twitch President Dan Clancy justified the change in a statement issued on Twitch's blog, stating it was done to cover Twitch's operating costs, noting the premium 70% split stopped being offered to new streamers over a year prior, and pointing to alternate streamer revenue sources that would not be affected by the subscription revenue reductions, such as Prime Subs or advertisement breaks. Though Clancy claimed 90% of streamers would not be affected by the revenue reduction, the change drew criticism from many streamers, who viewed it as harmful to the security of streaming careers and more beneficial to Twitch and its advertisers than their users, with several streamers expressing doubt at Clancy's claims of Twitch's high operating costs, and noting that Twitch already has alternative revenue sources that make reducing streamer revenue unnecessary. The announcement led to some streamers considering leaving Twitch or organizing boycotts.


Content

Twitch is designed to be a platform for content, including
esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...
tournaments, personal streams of individual players, and gaming-related talk shows. A number of channels do live
speedrunning Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game, or section of a video game, with the goal of completing it as fast as possible. Speedrunning often involves following planned routes, which may incorporate sequence breaking and can exploit gli ...
. The Twitch homepage currently displays games based on viewership. , some of the most popular games streamed on Twitch are ''
Fortnite ''Fortnite'' is an online video game developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in three distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: ''Fortnite Battle Royale'', a free-to- ...
'', ''
League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...
'', ''
Dota 2 ''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2' ...
'', ''
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is based ...
'', '' Hearthstone'', ''
Overwatch ''Overwatch'' is a multimedia franchise centered on a series of online multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) video games developed by Blizzard Entertainment: '' Overwatch'' released in 2016, and ''Overwatch 2'' released in 2022. Both games f ...
'' and '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' with a combined total of over 356 million hours watched. Twitch has also made expansions into non-gaming content; such as in July 2013, the site streamed a performance of 'Fester's Feast' from
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego Comic-Con International is a comic book convention and nonprofit multi-genre entertainment event held annually in San Diego, California since 1970. The name, as given on its website, is Comic-Con International: San Diego; but it is co ...
, and on July 30, 2014, electronic dance music act Steve Aoki broadcast a live performance from a nightclub in
Ibiza Ibiza (natively and officially in ca, Eivissa, ) is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, in Spain. Its l ...
. In January 2015, Twitch introduced an official category for music streams, such as radio shows and music production activities, and in March 2015, announced that it would become the new official live streaming partner of the
Ultra Music Festival Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is an annual outdoor electronic music festival that takes place during March in Miami, Florida, United States. The festival was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes. It was first held on Miami Beach, bu ...
, an
electronic music festival The following is an incomplete list of music festivals that feature electronic music, which encapsulates music featuring electronic instruments such as electric guitar and keyboards, as well as recent genres such as electronic dance music (ED ...
in
Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
. On October 28, 2015, Twitch launched a second non-gaming category, "Creative", which is intended for streams showcasing the creation of artistic and creative works. To promote the launch, the service also streamed an eight-day
marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair div ...
of
Bob Ross Robert Norman Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter, art instructor, and television host. He was the creator and host of '' The Joy of Painting'', an instructional television program that aired from 1983 to 1994 on ...
''
The Joy of Painting ''The Joy of Painting'' is an American half-hour instructional television show created and hosted by painter Bob Ross which ran from January 11, 1983 to May 17, 1994. In most episodes, Ross taught techniques for landscape oil painting, completi ...
''. In July 2016, Twitch launched "Social eating" as a beta; it was inspired by the Korean phenomenon of
mukbang A mukbang or meokbang ( ko, 먹방, ), also known as an eating show, is an online audiovisual broadcast in which a host consumes various quantities of food while interacting with the audience. It became popular in South Korea in 2010, and has s ...
and Korean players having engaged in the practice as intermissions on their gaming streams. In March 2017, Twitch added an "IRL" category, which is designed for content within Twitch guidelines that does not fall within any of the other established categories on the site (such as
lifelog A lifelog is a personal record of one's daily life in a varying amount of detail, for a variety of purposes. The record contains a comprehensive dataset of a human's activities. The data could be used to increase knowledge about how people liv ...
s). '' GeekWire'' reported that "while gameplay still makes up the vast majority of the content broadcast via Twitch, the 'Just Chatting' category — a catch-all term that encompasses anything from candid conversation to reality programming — took the top spot by a comfortable margin overall in December
019 Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...
While the category has been on the rise for the last couple of months, this was the first time that it’s actually achieved No. 1 overall for a tracked period on the platform". In 2020, ''
Thrillist Thrillist is an online media website covering food, drink, travel and entertainment. The company was founded in 2004 and is based in New York City, United States. In October 2016, Thrillist merged with internet brands '' The Dodo'', NowThis Ne ...
'' described Twitch as "talk radio for the extremely online". Michael Espinosa, for ''
Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...
'' in 2021, highlighted that "Twitch dominates the live content space, with 17 billion hours watched last year (per StreamElements), compared to YouTube Gaming Live's 10 billion (per the company). But the vast majority of gaming content is still consumed on-demand, where YouTube is the clear leader with over 100 billion hours watched last year".


As a teaching tool

Twitch is often used for video game tutorials; the nature of Twitch allows mass numbers of learners to interact with each other and the instructor in real time. Twitch is also used for software development learning, with communities of users streaming programming projects and talking through their work.


Charity

Broadcasters on Twitch often host streams promoting and raising money towards charity. By 2013, the website has hosted events which, in total, raised over in donations for charitable causes, such as
Extra Life In video games, a life is a play-turn that a player character has, defined as the period between start and end of play. Lives refer to a finite number of tries before the game ends with a game over. It is sometimes called a chance, a try, rest ...
2013. As of 2017, Twitch has raised over US$75 million in donations for charitable causes. The biggest charity event of Twitch is Zevent, a French project created by Adrien Nougaret and Alexandre Douchary, with more than US$10 million raised for Action Contre la Faim in October 2021.


Esports

ESL English as a second or foreign language is the use of English by speakers with different native languages. Language education for people learning English may be known as English as a second language (ESL), English as a foreign language (EFL ...
tournaments have aired on Justin.tv and later Twitch.tv since 2009. The platform has also been a longtime broadcaster of the
Evolution Championship Series The Evolution Championship Series, commonly known as Evo, is an annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are completely open and use the double elimination format. As with Super Battle Opera, contestants ...
. Twitch has been the official broadcaster of the
League of Legends World Championship The ''League of Legends'' World Championship (commonly abbreviated as Worlds) is the annual professional '' League of Legends'' world championship tournament hosted by Riot Games and is the culmination of each season. Teams compete for the cham ...
since 2012, as well as other League of Legends tournaments organized by
Riot Games Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on t ...
.
Dota 2 ''Dota 2'' is a 2013 multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game by Valve. The game is a sequel to ''Defense of the Ancients'' (''DotA''), a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's '' Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.'' ''Dota 2' ...
's premier tournament The International has been livestreamed on Twitch since 2013. The platform airs ''
Rocket League ''Rocket League'' is a vehicular soccer video game developed and published by Psyonix. The game was first released for Windows and PlayStation 4 in July 2015, with ports for Xbox One and Nintendo Switch being released later on. In June ...
'' tournaments organized by
Psyonix Psyonix LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. Founded in 2000 by Dave Hagewood, the company is best known for its 2015 game ''Rocket League''. In May 2019, Psyonix was acquired by Epic Games. History Psyonix was founded ...
since 2016. The
ELeague ''ELeague'', shortened as ''EL'', and stylized as ''ΞLEAGUE'' is an esports league and American television show that airs on TBS. It was announced in September 2015 as a partnership between Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG. ...
also broadcasts events on Twitch since 2016. Twitch and
Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduat ...
signed a two-year deal in June 2017 to make Twitch be the exclusive streaming broadcaster of select Blizzard esports championship events, with viewers under Twitch Prime earning special rewards in various Blizzard games. Twitch also reached a deal in 2018 to be the streaming partner of the
Overwatch League The Overwatch League (OWL) is a professional esports league for the video game ''Overwatch'', produced by its developer, Blizzard Entertainment. The Overwatch League follows the model of other traditional North American professional sporting lea ...
, with the site also offering an "All-Access Pass" with exclusive content, emotes, and in-game items for ''
Overwatch ''Overwatch'' is a multimedia franchise centered on a series of online multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) video games developed by Blizzard Entertainment: '' Overwatch'' released in 2016, and ''Overwatch 2'' released in 2022. Both games f ...
''. Blizzard switched to rival platform YouTube in 2020. ''
Fortnite Battle Royale ''Fortnite Battle Royale'' is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed and published by Epic Games. It is a companion game to '' Fortnite: Save the World'', a cooperative survival game with construction elements. It was initially re ...
'' competitions have aired on Twitch since its launch in 2017, including the
E3 2018 The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018 (E3 2018) was the 24th E3, during which hardware manufacturers, software developers, and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming products to the attendees, primarily retailers a ...
Fortnite Pro-Am and the 2019
Fortnite World Cup The Fortnite World Cup was an esports competition based on the video game ''Fortnite''. It look place July 26–28, 2019 at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City, United States. A total prize pool was available across the various competitio ...
. The
NBA 2K League The NBA 2K League (NBA2KL or simply 2K League) is an esports league joint venture between the National Basketball Association and Take-Two Interactive. The league was announced on February 9, 2017. On May 4, 2017, it was revealed that 17 of the ...
has been livestreamed on Twitch since its inception in 2018. As the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
suspended motorsports competitions around the world, several series launched
sim racing Simulated racing or racing simulation, commonly known as simply sim racing, are the collective terms for racing game software that attempts to accurately simulate auto racing, complete with real-world variables such as fuel usage, damage, tire ...
competitions with real-life professional drivers. Some series had official broadcasts on Twitch, such as
Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
and
IMSA The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) is a North American sports car racing sanctioning body based in Daytona Beach, Florida under the jurisdiction of the ACCUS arm of the FIA. It was started by John Bishop, a former executive direc ...
. Many drivers also had their personal live streams on Twitch, as was the case of several
eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series The eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational Series was a series of '' iRacing'' sim racing events originally organized for NASCAR drivers to compete in after its 2020 seasons were put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drivers from all of NASCAR's ...
and INDYCAR iRacing Challenge drivers.


Professional sports

In December 2017, the
National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...
announced that it would stream
NBA G League The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the National Basketball Association's (NBA) official List of developmental and minor sports leagues, minor league basketball organization. The league was known as the National Basketball Development ...
games on Twitch starting on December 15; the broadcasts also include interactive statistics overlays, as well as additional streams of the games with commentary by Twitch personalities. In April 2018, it was announced that Twitch would carry eleven
National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
''
Thursday Night Football ''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to 20 ...
'' games from 2018 to 2021 in simulcast with
Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...
, as part of the league's renewed streaming deal with Amazon Prime Video. During the 2017 season, these streams had been exclusive to Amazon Prime subscribers. As part of the broadcasts, Twitch would also offer alternate broadcasts, including broadcasts hosted by Twitch personalities, and ''NFL Next Live'' —an interactive broadcast hosted by
Andrew Hawkins Andrew Austin Hawkins (born March 10, 1986) is a former American football wide receiver. He played six seasons in the National Football League with the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns and two seasons for the Montreal Alouettes of the Ca ...
and
Cari Champion Cari Champion (born June 1, 1978) is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. She is the host of The Cari Champion Show on Amazon Prime Video Sports Talk. She has worked as an anchor and reporter for the Tennis Channel and as ...
. With ''Thursday Night Football'' moving exclusively to Amazon Prime Video for the
2022 NFL season The 2022 NFL season is the 103rd season of the National Football League (NFL). The season began on September 8, 2022, with the defending Super Bowl LVI champion Los Angeles Rams falling to Buffalo in the NFL Kickoff Game, and will end on Ja ...
, Twitch will continue to carry simulcasts of all games, while the site will also carry alternate broadcasts (such as one featuring
Dude Perfect Dude Perfect (DP) is an American sports and comedy group headquartered in Frisco, Texas. The group consists of Tyler "TT" Toney, twins Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett "Purple Hoser" Hilbert, and Cody "Tall Guy" Jones, all of whom are former colleg ...
). In January 2019,
professional wrestling Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...
promotion
Impact Wrestling Impact Wrestling (stylized as ''IMPACT! Wrestling''), is an American professional wrestling promotion based in Nashville, Tennessee. It is a subsidiary of Anthem Sports & Entertainment. Founded by Jeff and Jerry Jarrett in 2002, the promot ...
announced that it would stream its weekly show '' Impact!'' on Twitch, in simulcast with the television airing on the U.S. cable network
Pursuit Channel Pursuit Channel is an American television network that airs programming geared to hunting, fishing, shooting and outdoor recreation. It is based in Glenwood, Alabama and was launched on April 23, 2008. Pursuit is currently available to over 45 m ...
(co-owned with the promotion's parent company
Anthem Sports & Entertainment Anthem Sports & Entertainment (formerly Anthem Media Group) is a Canadian multinational media company based in Toronto, Ontario and founded by Leonard Asper. Its assets include combat sports and sports entertainment properties (including the MMA ...
). On September 5, 2019, the
Premier Hockey Federation The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), formerly the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), is a women's professional ice hockey league located in the United States and Canada. The league was established in 2015 with four league-owned teams and ha ...
announced a three-year broadcast rights deal with Twitch, covering all games and league events. The deal also contained an agreement with the
Premier Hockey Federation Players' Association The Premier Hockey Federation Players' Association (also known as the PHFPA or the PHF Players' Association, formerly known as the National Women's Hockey League Players' Association) is a representative body for professional ice hockey players in ...
for revenue sharing with players, and marked the first time that the NWHL had ever received a rights fee. The National Women's Soccer League announced a three-year deal in March 2020 for Twitch to stream 24 matches per-season in the United States and Canada, collaborate on original content, and serve as the rightsholder for all matches outside of the United States and Canada. On June 20, 2020, as an extension of Prime Video's local rights to the league, a plan to air all of the remaining matches of the 2019–20 season (for the resumption of play due to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
and matches being played behind closed doors), and a plan for some of these matches to be carried free-to-air, it was announced that Twitch would stream a package of four
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
soccer matches within the United Kingdom. On July 16, 2020, U.S. radio broadcaster
Entercom Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
announced a partnership to stream video simulcasts of programs from some of their major-market
sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-ai ...
stations on Twitch channels. On July 22, 2020, Twitch officially launched a Sports category, primarily playing host to content streamed by sports leagues and teams on the platform. The 2021 Copa América association football tournament aired in Spain on Twitch, under a partnership with
Gerard Piqué Gerard Piqué Bernabeu (, ; born 2 February 1987) is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. He is considered one of the best defenders of his generation. Initially a highly promising student at La Masia, Piqué ...
's media company Kosmos and streamer
Ibai Llanos Ibai Llanos Garatea (born 26 March 1995), better known mononymously as Ibai, is a Spanish internet celebrity, streamer, and esports caster. He was a content creator for G2 Esports from 2020 to 2021. He is co-owner of the esports team KOI, a ...
.


Emotes

Twitch features a large number of
emotes An emote is an entry in a text-based chat client that indicates an action taking place. Unlike emoticons, they are not text art, and instead describe the action using words or images (similar to emoji). Emotes were created by Shigetaka Kurita ...
. There are emotes free for all users, emotes for Turbo users, emotes for Twitch Prime users, and emotes for users who are subscribed to Twitch partners or affiliates. ''Kappa'' was the most used emote on Twitch. Twitch partnered broadcasters unlock more "emote slots" as they gain more subscribers up to a maximum of 50 emotes per channel. On January 6, 2021, Twitch announced that they had removed the '' PogChamp'' emote, the third most-used emote on the platform in 2018, typically used to express excitement, joy or shock. The decision was made in response to comments from the streamer Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez, the face of the emote, supporting civil unrest during the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol for the death of a protestor. Twitch said it will work with the community for a suitable replacement for the emoticon. Twitch later announced that there would be a new PogChamp emote every 24 hours. On February 12, Twitch viewers elected KomodoHype as the new permanent PogChamp emote.


Creators and audience


Streamers

Streamer
Ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enem ...
had been among Twitch's top personalities, with over 14 million followers. In August 2019, however, Ninja announced that he would move exclusively to a Microsoft-owned competitor, Mixer. After Ninja left, the top three streamers in October 2019 based on follower count were
Tfue Turner Tenney (born January 2, 1998), better known as Tfue, is an American streamer and esports player, best known for playing ''Fortnite''. Career Tenney previously streamed games such as ''Call of Duty'', ''Destiny'' and '' H1Z1'', but he t ...
(7.01 million followers),
Shroud Shroud usually refers to an item, such as a cloth, that covers or protects some other object. The term is most often used in reference to '' burial sheets'', mound shroud, grave clothes, winding-cloths or winding-sheets, such as the famous S ...
(6.45 million followers) and TSM Myth (5.1 million followers). Twitch began signing exclusivity deals with high-profile streamers in December 2019, starting with
DrLupo Benjamin Lupo (born March 20, 1987), better known as DrLupo, is an American streamer and YouTuber. Career Lupo began his career streaming ''Destiny'' before transitioning to battle royale games such as '' H1Z1''. His channel grew after he began ...
,
TimTheTatman Timothy John Betar (born April 8, 1990), better known as TimTheTatman, is an American live streamer and internet personality on YouTube. Career Betar started streaming on Twitch in 2012 and has amassed over seven million followers since. Broadc ...
, and Lirik, who had a combined 10.36 million followers at the time.
Dr DisRespect Herschel Beahm IV (born March 10, 1982), better known as Dr Disrespect or SPECT or Mr. 2 Time, is an American video game streamer. He had over 4 million followers on Twitch when he was active on the site, and became known for playing battle ro ...
signed a multi-year deal in March 2020. In May 2020, Twitch signed popular streamers Summit1g, dakotaz and JoshOG to multi-year exclusive deals. On June 26, 2020, Dr DisRespect was banned from Twitch for unexplained reasons and his channel was removed from the site. Following the discontinuation of Mixer in late-July 2020, both Ninja and Shroud (who had also defected to the service) re-signed exclusively with Twitch. , there have been eight streamers to have reached over 100,000 concurrent subscribers. These streamers are Ninja, Shroud, Ranboo, Ludwig, Casimito,
Ironmouse Ironmouse is a Puerto Rican-American VTuber and live streamer. Active since 2017, she is a founding member of the VTuber group VShojo launched in 2020. With over one million followers on Twitch, she is the most-followed English language VTuber o ...
, Gaules and Ibai. In April 2021'', Business Insider'' reported that "over the past 31 days, Ahgren has streamed non-stop in an attempt to break the record of 269,154 subscribers held by gaming personality Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins. By the end of the month-long stream, Ahgren had over 282,000 subscribers on his channel. ..At one point during his sleep cycle, his channel had the most concurrent viewers of any on the platform". In analysis of the October 2021 data leak, multiple news outlets reported that the three top-earning Twitch content creators are ''
Critical Role ''Critical Role'' is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after ...
'' ($9,626,712), XQc ($8,454,427), and Summit1g ($5,847,541). Sisi Jiang, for ''
Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...
'', reported that "excluding streams that are run by multiple people (such as ''Critical Role''), there are no women in the top third of top-earning Twitch content creators"; in total, there are only three women in the top 100 and only one is a woman of color. Jiang highlighted that these streamers are "''Valorant'' streamer
Pokimane Imane Anys (; Arabic: إِيمَان أَنِيس, born 14 May 1996), better known as Pokimane ( or ), is a Moroccan-Canadian Twitch streamer and YouTuber. She is best known for her live streams on Twitch, broadcasting video game content, mos ...
at 39th place, cosplayer
Amouranth Kaitlyn Michelle Siragusa (born December 2, 1993), better known as Amouranth , is an American Internet celebrity, Online streamer, streamer, and OnlyFans model. Siragusa is also known for her ASMR Twitch (service), Twitch Livestreaming, lives ...
at 48th, and music streamer Sintica at 71st" and commented that "in spite of the complaints about the 'hot tub meta,' 'titty streamers,' and how some male streamers perceive that female streamers are stealing views from men, the numbers show that only a small percentage of women are among the ranks of Twitch’s highest-earning content creators". In August 2021, DrLupo left Twitch for an exclusivity deal with YouTube; TimTheTatman followed in September 2021, as did Ludwig Ahgren in November 2021. Nathan Grayson, for ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', commented that when streamers moved to Mixer in 2019, Twitch quickly locked down multiple streamers in exclusivity deals; however, streamers who moved to Mixer saw their audiences undergo "a marked downsizing. ..It demonstrated that many viewers within Twitch’s ecosystem, when deprived of their favorite big streamers, will just find other Twitch streamers to take their place. ..Now Twitch is bargaining from a place of confidence. That allows it to reevaluate previous deals made when streamers had more leverage". Grayson reported that lower offers from Twitch coupled with Twitch's higher streaming hour requirement ("YouTube’s contracts start at 100 hours of streaming time per month while Twitch’s start at 200") has made YouTube's exclusivity deals "tantalizing" to some Twitch streamers. Grayson wrote that "
Ryan Wyatt Ryan Wyatt (born October 7, 1986) is an American gaming executive. He is the former global head of gaming partnerships at Google and head of gaming at YouTube, where he also led their virtual and augmented reality business. Wyatt now serves as the ...
, head of YouTube Gaming, said that allowing streamers to have a better work–life balance is a big priority for him"; DrLupo cited
work–life balance Work may refer to: * Work (human activity), intentional activity people perform to support themselves, others, or the community ** Manual labour, physical work done by humans ** House work, housework, or homemaking ** Working animal, an animal tr ...
as part of his decision to leave Twitch.


Users

It was reported in the early 2010s that the typical Twitch viewer is male and aged between 18 and 34 years of age, although the site has also made attempts at pursuing other demographics, including women. By 2015, Twitch had more than 100 million viewers per month. In 2017, Twitch remained the leading live streaming video service for video games in the US. ''GeekWire'' reported that "while Twitch’s overall share of the streaming market has been steadily diminishing over the course of the year, from 67.1 percent in December 2018 to 61 percent at the end of the 2019, the steady growth of the overall market means that the overall amount of content watched on the service has done nothing but increase". The Academic journal, journal article ''World of Streaming. Motivation and Gratification on Twitch'' reported the results of a Twitch user survey in 2017. In ranking user motivations on the use of Twitch, users were motivated (in descending order) to watch Twitch: "to be entertained", "to follow gaming events", and to "have an alternative for television". Motivations classified as "socialization" and "information" ranked lower than motivations classified as "entertainment". , it had 3 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users, with 1.4 million average
concurrent user In computer science, the number of concurrent users (sometimes abbreviated CCU) for a resource in a location, with the location being a computing network or a single computer, refers to the total number of people simultaneously accessing or using t ...
s. Statista, a company specializing in market and consumer data, reported that "as of May 2020, users in their teens and twenties accounted for more than three-quarters of Twitch's active app user accounts in the United States. According to recent data users aged 20 to 29 years, accounted for 40.6 percent of the video streaming app's user base on the Android platform". They also reported that the "distribution of Twitch users in the United States as of 2nd quarter 2021" was 75% male and 25% female. Twitch allows anyone to watch a live broadcast and does not require viewers to log in. Users also have the option to follow and subscribe (also known as subbing) to streamers. Following is a free option, similar to other platforms such as Instagram and Twitter, where the user will see their followed streamers on the front page of Twitch when signed in and can receive notifications of specific broadcasts. Subscribing is a way for users to financially support streamers in exchange for exclusive benefits determined by the individual streamer. Users who link their Twitch account to their Amazon Prime account gain access to Amazon Prime#Prime Video and Prime Gaming, Prime Gaming which includes one complimentary Twitch subscription per month that the user can assign to the streamer of their choice. The aforementioned 2017 academic survey stated that 31.5% of users "spent money on Twitch"; of those users, 22.6% "donated to a streamer", 31.6% subscribed to a streamer and 45.8% "did both". The majority of these users stated the "main motivation is to support a streamer financially". Twitch's Terms of Service does not allow people under 13 years of age to use its services. Additionally, people who are at least 13 years old but below the age of majority in their jurisdiction (18 in most jurisdictions), may only use the services under the supervision or permission of a parent or other legal guardian who agrees to abide to the Terms of Service.


Partner and affiliate programs

In July 2011, Twitch launched its Partner Program, which reached over 11,000 members by August 2015. Similar to the Partner Program of other video sites like
YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
, the Partner Program allows popular content producers to share in the advertisement revenue generated from their streams. Additionally, Twitch users can subscribe to partnered streamers' channels for US$4.99 a month, often granting the user access to unique emoticons, live chat privileges, and other various perks. Twitch retains US$2.49 of every US$4.99 channel subscription, with the remaining US$2.50 going directly to the partnered streamer. Although exceptions were made, Twitch previously required that prospective partners have an "average concurrent viewership of 500+", as well as a consistent streaming schedule of at least three days a week. However, since the launch of the 'Achievements' feature, there is a clearer "Path to Partnership" with trackable goals for concurrent viewership, duration and frequency of streams. In April 2017, Twitch launched its "Affiliate Program" that allows smaller channels to generate revenue as well, also announcing that it would allow channels access to multi-priced subscription tiers. The participants of this program get some but not all of the benefits of the Twitch Partners. Streamers can make profit from cheering with Bits which are purchasable from Twitch directly. Affiliates are also able to access the Twitch Subscriptions feature, with all the same functionality that Partners have access to, with a maximum of five subscriber emotes. In September 2019, the service announced that Affiliates would now receive a share of ad revenue. Advertising on the site has been handled by a number of partners. In 2011, Twitch had an exclusive deal with Future US. On April 17, 2012, Twitch announced a deal to give CBS Interactive the rights to exclusively sell advertising, promotions and sponsorships for the community. On June 5, 2013, Twitch announced the formation of the Twitch Media Group, a new in-house advertisement sales team which has taken over CBS Interactive's role of selling advertisements. For users who do not have ad-free access to a channel or Twitch Turbo, pre-roll advertising, and mid-roll commercial breaks that are manually triggered by the streamer, are displayed on streams. In September 2020, Twitch announced that it would test automated mid-roll advertising on streams, which cannot be controlled by the streamer.


Content moderation and restrictions


Copyrighted content

On August 6, 2014, Twitch announced that all on-demand videos on Twitch became subject to acoustic fingerprinting using software provided by content protection company Audible Magic; if copyrighted music (particularly, songs played by users from outside of the game they are playing) is detected, the 30-minute portion of the video which contains the music will be muted. Live broadcasts were not subject to these filters. A system was available for those who believed they were inappropriately affected and had rights to the music they used to challenge the filtering. Twitch offered a selection of Production music#Royalty-free libraries, royalty-free music for streamers to use, which was expanded upon later in January 2015. The audio filtering system, along with the lack of communication surrounding the changes in general, proved to be controversial among users. In a Reddit AMA, co-founder Emmett Shear admitted that his staff had "screwed up" and should have provided advance warning of the changes, and promised that Twitch had "absolutely no intention" of implementing audio filtering on live broadcasts. In June 2020, Twitch received a large wave of DMCA takedown notices aimed at year-old VODs and "clips" (short segments of streams that can be captured by users) that contain copyrighted music from 2017 to 2019. Twitch complied with the takedowns and also issued a number of copyright strikes against viewers. Concerned streamers were notified that they should remove all VODs and clips if not certain they did not contain copyrighted material. This provoked major backlash, both at the loss of prior content but also based on viability concerns due to an inability to review or even rapidly delete content. There were also complaints based that strikes were being issued on viewer-created clips, even where the streamer-created content was deleted. On September 15, 2020, Twitch signed a licensing agreement with the French performance society SACEM, allowing composers and publishers to collect royalties whenever their music is streamed in France. Twitch already had licensing deals with the American societies ASCAP, Broadcast Music, Inc., BMI, SESAC and Global Music Rights. To address these issues and also build upon the growth of music-based content on Twitch, Twitch introduced an extension known as "Soundtrack" in September 2020, which plays rights-cleared music with curated genre-based playlists. It is contained within a separate stream that is not recorded with the VODs, and had agreements with 24 music distributors and independent record labels at launch. A group of U.S. Performance rights organisation, performance rights and music associations accused Twitch of designing Soundtrack in such a way as to avoid payment of Mechanical license, mechanical and synchronization licenses — claims which Twitch has defended. In September 2021, Twitch and the National Music Publishers' Association signed a creative partnership.


Mature content

Twitch users are not allowed to stream any game that is rated "Adults Only" (AO) in the United States by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), regardless of its rating in any other geographical region, and any game that contains "overtly sexual content" or "gratuitous violence", or content which violates the terms of use of third-party services. Twitch has also explicitly banned specific games from streaming, regardless of rating; this includes games such as ''BMX XXX'', eroge visual novel games (such as ''Dramatical Murder''), ''HuniePop'', ''Rinse and Repeat'', ''Second Life'', and ''Yandere Simulator''. The banning of ''Yandere Simulator'' was criticized by YandereDev, the developer of the game. He believed that the game was being arbitrarily singled out with no explanation, as Twitch has not banned other games with similarly excessive sexual or violent content such as ''Mortal Kombat X'', ''Grand Theft Auto'', or ''The Witcher 3''. Twitch took temporary action in May 2019 after channels related to the video game ''Artifact (video game), Artifact'' began to be used for inappropriate content. ''Artifact'', a major game by Valve Corporation, Valve, had lost most of its audience in just months from its release, and by late May 2019, several popular livestreamers commented that the total viewership for ''Artifact'' streams had dropped to near zero. In the days that followed, several streamers started to make streams purporting to be ''Artifact'' gameplay but was trolling or other off-topic content. Initially these new streams were playing with the viewers or were jokes, such as showing animal videos or ''
League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a Mod (video games), custom map for War ...
'' matches. After a few days, other ''Artifact'' channel streams appeared containing content that was against the terms of Twitch's use policy, including full copyrighted movies, pornography, Nazi propaganda, and at least one stream that showed the entirety of the shooter's video from the Christchurch mosque shootings. The titles of such streams were usually presented to imply they were showing other content while waiting in queue for ''Artifact'' matches as to appear legitimate. As word of these streams in the ''Artifact'' section grew, Twitch took action, deleting the account that streamed the Christchurch shooting. Twitch then took steps to temporarily ban new accounts from streaming until they can resolve the issue. By June 2019, Twitch started taking legal actions against one hundred "John Doe" streamers in a California court, accusing them of trademark infringement, breach of contract, fraud, and unlawful use of the service that was harming and scaring away users of the service. In early 2021, some streams began to use their Twitch channel to broadcast themselves from hot tubs while wearing swimsuits. Twitch considered these streams to be "not advertiser friendly", banning some of the more predominant channels that had taken this route. In May 2021, Twitch clarified in a "Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches" post that it was not trying to discriminate against women or others through this action, but through content that they deemed to be "sexually suggestive". In June that year, Twitch also took similar action against users that performed yoga while at the same time made autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) sounds via their microphones, which Twitch also stated was approaching sexual content.


Hate speech and harassment

In February 2018, Twitch updated its acceptable content policies to direct that any content that it deemed hateful be suspended from its platform. In June 2020, a number of women stepped forward with accusations towards several streamers on Twitch and other services related to sexual misconduct and harassment claims. Twitch stated it would review all reported incidents and comply with law enforcement in any investigative efforts. However, several popular streamers on Twitch's service believed that the platform could do more to evaluate the accused individuals, prevent incidents, and protect others in the future, and used June 24, 2020, as a Twitch blackout day, not streaming any content through Twitch to show their support. By the evening of June 24, 2020, Twitch had placed several bans on the accounts of those accused after completing their investigation, and stated in a blog post they would be forwarding additional details to law enforcement. Twitch temporarily suspended an account belonging to President Donald Trump's campaign on June 29, 2020. Twitch stated that "hateful conduct is not allowed" as the reason for the suspension. Twitch announced a new policy towards harassment and hateful content in December 2020 that would take effect on January 22, 2021, aimed to better protect marginalized users of the service. While the new policy is more strict, Twitch said that this also includes a larger sliding scale of remedies or punishments to better deal with edge cases, such as temporarily blocking one's channel for a short time rather than a full ban. The new rules include a ban on ‘racist emotes’, though the list of such emotes is not clarified yet, and imagery containing the Flags of the Confederate States of America, Confederate Flag. The new policy included banning words that were considered sexual insults, such as "incel" and "virgin" when used for harassment. The banned words included "simp", which raised criticism by streamers and long time viewers. While its slang origins have defined "simp" derogatorily as "a man who invests a lot of time and energy into women who don't want him", the term had become common on Twitch as an insult related to men being nice to women on the service or simply to refer to a person with loyalty to another. Twitch, in response, clarified that penalties for using these terms would only be enforced if they were being used in harassment of other users. On December 4, 2020, Twitch removed the "blind playthrough" tag due to concerns of ableism that it may be offensive to those who are visually impaired. Suggestions for non-offensive and more neutral labels include "first playthrough", "undiscovered," and "no spoilers." A popular feature of Twitch is the ability to "raid" another channel, where multiple users, coordinated from a different Twitch channel or another social media service, all join a target channel to provide support and encouragement. This is typically used to help boost the popularity of the target channel, particularly if the raid is organized by a popular streamer. Twitch had officially supported this type of activity since 2017 with the ability for a streamer to send all of their viewers to another channel as a raid. However, around mid-2021, new types of "hate raids" began to occur with increasing frequency on Twitch. In these cases, numerous users would flood a channel and its chat with messages of harassment and hate towards the streamer as a form of cyberbullying. Most of these users are typically from automated bots, which made it difficult for channel moderators to deal with the amount of messages. Despite warning Twitch about these hate raids, Twitch had shown little action towards stopping them, leading numerous streams to organize a "#ADayOffTwitch" on September 1, 2021, as a form of protest in anticipation that Twitch will find ways to take action against them. After acknowledging a problem with dealing with hate raids, Twitch launched a lawsuit in early September 2021 against two individuals they had determined to be responsible for managing several hate raids after permanently banning their accounts. At the end of September 2021, Twitch introduced tools for streamers to be able to limit who may participate in their chat as to prevent hate raids. These tools allow streamers to limit chat to those that have verified their phone number or email with Twitch, as well as to those that have followed their channel for a minimum amount of time. In May 2022, following the 2022 Buffalo shooting, mass shooting in Buffalo, the New York state attorney general's office announced an investigation into multiple online platforms, including Twitch, to determine their part in platforming or promoting hateful content. The investigation will also focus on the platforms' moderation efforts. A spokesperson for Twitch stated that the service would comply with the investigation.


Extremism

In April 2021, it was reported that Twitch was providing a financial lifeline to extremists such as QAnon adherents and far-right influencers. Another report in August and September 2021, by the Institute of Strategic Dialogue also indentified Twitch as a platform where far right extremists run rampant. Clips from far-right extremists, such as ‘Omegle Redpilling’ become quite popular before they are removed from the platform and in some cases, are not removed at all according to Institute for Strategic Dialogue, ISD.


Gambling

On September 20, 2022, Twitch announced that it would prohibit online gambling streams, including those that use cryptocurrency. Gambling has been extremely popular on Twitch for years, being one of the most popular types of content on the platform, with many streamers being sponsored by online gambling services; however, it has also been controversial, with prominent streamers such as Mizkif and Pokimane speaking out against the negative effects of gambling streams. The announcement came shortly after a popular streamer admitted he spent $200,000 in donations on ''CS:GO'' skin gambling. The ban, which is set to take effect on October 18, does not affect sports betting, fantasy sports, and poker.


Internet censorship


Asia

As of September 20, 2018, the Twitch website is blocked and the app is blocked from the Apple App Store in China. In India, Twitch was reportedly blocked by Reliance Industries, Reliance-owned telecommunication company Jio as well as internet service providers JioFiber and Hathway in September 2020 as some users were illegally streaming matches of 2020 Indian Premier League on the platform. On July 4, 2022, the Iranian Government blocked access to Twitch for Iranian Internet users.


Platform support

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear has stated a desire to support a wide variety of platforms, stating that they wanted to be on "every platform where people watch video". Twitch streaming apps are available for mobile devices, digital media players and video game consoles, including Android (operating system), Android and iOS, as well as Amazon Fire TV, Fire TV, Fire HD, Apple TV, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Users can stream to Twitch from Microsoft Windows, Windows, Macintosh, Mac, or Linux operating systems, either with stand-alone software like Open Broadcaster Software, OBS, through a platform like Electronic Arts, EA's Origin (service), Origin software, Ubisoft's Uplay, or Valve Corporation, Valve's
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. Games such as ''Eve Online'', ''PlanetSide 2'' and the Call of Duty, ''Call of Duty'' franchise now link directly to Twitch as well. In 2013, Twitch released a software development kit to allow any developer to integrate Twitch streaming into their software.


Twitch Desktop App and CurseForge

The Twitch Desktop App replaced the Curse LLC, Curse Client and Curse Launcher in 2017. It includes a dedicated browser for the Twitch website and additional functions inherited from the Curse software, such as Mod (video gaming), mod installation and management for supported games via the CurseForge service, and voice chat. The software also serves as the client for the former Twitch Game Store. In June 2020, CurseForge was sold to Overwolf for an undisclosed sum. The current mod management in the Twitch client will be moved to a dedicated, though not standalone, CurseForge client. On April 1, 2022, Twitch announced that it would officially end support for the Twitch Desktop App on April 30, 2022, opting users of the Desktop app to use a web browser to interact with Twitch while using the desktop platform.


TwitchCon

TwitchCon is a biannual fan convention devoted to Twitch and the culture of video game streaming. The inaugural event was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from September 25–26, 2015. Since its inception TwitchCon has been an annual event. The second TwitchCon was held in San Diego at the San Diego Convention Center from September 30 – October 2, 2016. The third annual TwitchCon was held in Long Beach at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center from October 20–22, 2017. The fourth annual TwitchCon was held at the San Jose Convention Center, San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, from October 26–28, 2018. In 2019, Twitchcon expanded overseas and hosted their first ever European event in Berlin in April 2019, alongside a North American event later in November 2019 in San Diego. TwitchCon had planned to host an event in Amsterdam in May 2020, but this was cancelled due to the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
. Another TwitchCon event was planned in San Diego in September 2020, but was also cancelled due to COVID-19.


See also

* List of social networking services


References


External links

* *
Official about page
{{Amazon.com Twitch (service), 2011 establishments in California 2014 mergers and acquisitions Amazon (company) acquisitions Entertainment companies based in California American companies established in 2011 Entertainment companies established in 2011 Internet properties established in 2011 Mass media companies established in 2011 Software companies established in 2011 Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Video game streaming services Video hosting Video on demand services Software companies of the United States