I find myself fascinated with the workings of what is currently the only video-game centric live streaming platform in the world for it's many machinations are helpful for getting a grip on the gaming world. Observing live streaming collaborations can help ascertain general active community interest, (at least in a specific sector of game fan) twitch integrations is a vector of game marketing I find truly fascinating, and in general I have an outside interest in gaming culture- insular as it is. Which is why whenever I hear about big news regarding the platform, particularly in regards to it's viability in the years to come, I can't help but dig out a little bit of worry. Most of all, I wonder exactly what it means for one of the most mainstream games industry services to falter and die in the manner it very much seems to be doing so right now. I mean, that ain't good- right?
The moment when I think the problems with current Twitch began to balloon to those outside of the small bubble that is the ecosystem was when the revenue split with creators began sliding in the less-than-ideal direction. When streamers started feeling the pinch that opened up the floodgates for other platforms to slide in a and steal some talent- and whilst Twitch still very much remains the biggest kid on the block- they're no longer really the only choice for streaming. Youtube is an option, although only taken semi-seriously, but the others actually have some traction specifically because of the ground that Twitch strangely decided to give on this point. A bizarre, and hugely predictable, strategic move that can only really be explained out of necessity.
Twitch seems to have a trouble justifying it's existence of late, failing to make a profit and keep monetisation efforts up without losing viewer retention by drowning people with adverts. As with any venture capital operation this was hardly a concern for the first ten years- as those are the time when audiences are built and the budgeting team just spend their days pushing back the meltdown for whoever holds their position the day the investors come knocking. But Twitch is past it's honeymoon years, and the infinite investor well is drying up- we're getting to the point where Twitch is arguing with their parent company at Amazon over the cost of webhosting, which often times doesn't cover the amount of money they can pull from all but the top most streamers. Most of those topmost are, of course, slowly migrating to greener pastures where they can make more money, leaving Twitch largely screwed.
We've already had one gigantic loss from the platform where they had to drop the entirety of Korea from coverage, simply because the rising internet costs could not feasibly cover the profit potential of that country. Of course, a huge sector of streamer culture comes from South Korea, so that lost stung like a stab at Twitch's soul. Who would be next on the chopping block? Spain? India? These are the kinds of concessions you expect a struggling start-up to make, not a veteran with a supposed dominance over it's respective market. And with how Twitch it performing, it's hard to look at this as 'just a road bump' and not a deadly indication of things to presently come. It's hard to pretend that Twitch is not already 'over the hill' at this point.
Then we have the upheaval regarding management and the surprise 'escaping' of the former CEO- a famously hands-off scourge who seemingly considered Twitch so insignificant on his portfolio that he never even batted an eye it's way. Or paid attention to what it was going through. His replacement does certainly seem a lot more... on the ball- shall we say... but it's still quite some indication of the turmoil happening at the company. If one leader is shirking the company and a real go-getter is being brought in to try and revive the machine- it could be seen as an indication that Twitch is no longer seen as a sure investment, but a fixer-upper project that needs active leadership. Sure, in theory every good company should demand active leadership, but in the false world of optics and fluff- that could be a bad sign.
And now we seem to be in the period of Twitch where the company is struggling trying to carve out it's own identity in the landstreaming space once again. They used to be the home of gaming back when that seemed like a profitable venture, until reality set in and the people wanted more variety options. Also, a very active segment were actively trying to sexualise the gaming section as much as possible in order to stand out from the crowd and grow a profitable following. Just chatting became the variety space, until people started taking advantage of that- stripping down to everything short of their birthday suits for those all important 'nearly nude' thumbnails. And then we got the Hot-tub meta, which de-criminalised near nudity as long as there was a hot-tub in frame. Regardless of whether or not the user was actually interacting with said tub. But when it comes to horny baiting, there's no upper limit. Now it seems Twitch is trying to determine what exactly it means to be the variety streaming platform and gaming hub, when Kick, Rumble and even TikTok have muscled into that space.
Currently we're watching the people at Twitch trying to exorcise a recent pandemic of body-gameplay streamers who wear tight-fitting green clothing and then use that to greenscreen gameplay onto a part of their body which they flaunt off excessively. But even that only started up because Steam had to crackdown on the 'Ass Streams' wherein girls would play a game whilst having their 'face cam' essentially be their colonoscopy shot. Of course it's not as though there isn't a place for this kind of content- many adult streaming sites exist and popular Vtuber ProjektMelody frequents all them enough to demonstrate you can get a decent audience there. But it's the allure of breaking into the streaming main crowd- converting the unconverted, defying the status quo- that is driving this back and forth on Twitch policy- and it's slowly strangling the life out of the platform.
Looking at the state of Twitch, the disorganisation, the lack of a direction, the rising competition, the layoffs, the reduced operations- it's not great deduction to assume that the company is on the downwards trend- and perhaps it won't even be around much longer if that parent company of theirs remembers how much money it's spending on what is currently a burning pit of lost funds. And in such a place, a world without a Twitch, I wonder what that would mean for the future of video game communities sharing the games that they love online. Would Youtube finally have to start putting in real features to fill that gap- or will ever more copycats arise to fight over the scraps of the void left in it's wake. Unfortunately I have a feeling we're going to find out soon.
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