TwitchCon 2017 kicked off today with a keynote revealing all the new features coming video service through the end of the year, mostly focused around offering new ways for streamers to engage with their audiences and track the progress of their channels.
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That includes stream summary, which will surface relevant stats about viewers, follows, chat activity, and top clips following a stream. Twitch will also be surfacing more information about a channel’s progress toward affiliate or partner status through an achievement system, which will also endeavor to introduce new streamers to the service’s features and inform them of better ways to connect with their community. Twitch are making a “guarantee” that completing the achievement path will lead to affiliate or partner status.
Streamers will also be able to direct their fans to traffic the channels of other creators through raids, and rituals will serve as a way for streamers to “celebrate special moments that bring their community together.” The first example of a ritual given would allow streamers to tag new viewers to be welcomed by the rest of the chat. Achievements, stream summary, raids, and rituals will all be launching in November.
By the end of the year, Twitch will also implement premieres, allowing streamers to first broadcast uploaded content in a live setting with fans. Rooms will allow for chat groups to exist alongside the primary chat for different users. Subscription gifts are exactly what they sound like, allowing one-month subscriptions to be purchased and given to any Twitch user. Finally, in-extension purchases will be added allowing partners and affiliates to earn income on digital goods purchased through extensions.
You can see the full keynote below.
It’s good to see some of these features implemented, particularly the increased clarity around what it takes to reach partner or affiliate status. But it’s disappointing to see Twitch not specifically address any of the platform’s harassment issues in this venue, particularly when they’re implementing a new feature like raids whose potential for misuse is as obvious as it is horrifying. Twitch is one of the largest media services in the world at this point and they’ll likely continue to grow despite themselves, but it would be nice to see a little more acknowledgement of the platform’s problems.