What's up with Twitch?

 

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.

How to fake mistakes and influence people.

 Is there something going around the 'greedy exec' watering hole?

Big surprise: The industry is back on their insanity again as the rough walls of this industry of ours appear to peeling off from around us- all the while we smile and try to pretend that the Summer Games Fest is the only thing of importance happening around us. (I just want to make it to the Bethesda/Microsoft showcase without another stupid industry scandal, can we manage that?) But with all this turmoil bubbling up around us, it's important that we don't become lost in the fervour of it all and lose sight of the simple things. Human fragility. The ability to forgive. And the fact that people make honest mistakes sometimes. Of course, it's that very human and understanding nature of man which companies so often exploit in their mastery of 'popularity mind games' which appears to have become all the rage in the modern day entertainment industry. Observe: two masters who recently got to work.

First we have Twitch, the number one video game streaming site on the Internet and the home of an executive board that seems to regularly flip out and stick a loaded gun to the platform's head forcing the user base to bum rush them in order to save themselves. And what was the bullet this time? Sponsorship deals. Very long and specific story short, Twitch are trying to make their platform profitable and that is becoming harder and harder the more people come to host on their services- their latest attempt was to try and throttle users ability to make off-site sponsorship deals without Twitch as an intermediary. Through a plethora of pointed community guideline updates, Twitch neatly outlawed a variety of methods that sponsorship seekers set up advertising communities with Twitch Streamers, all in a vain hope of forcing said streamers to seek sponsorship deals out through Twitch, thus allowing them to take a big cut of the earnt revenue. Delightfully devilish, Twitch-more!

Now, of course- this is really the kind of comically evil play you'd only usually attempt to pull in an industry over which you have a monopoly, and Twitch have been slowly losing that monopoly in recent years. Youtube, Kick, Rumble- everyone seems to be coming to take the market share away from Twitch and almost all of them offer better deals- Twitch only seems to be topdog these days because of a more solid infrastructure and legacy appeal. By making it impossible for enfranchised Streamers to make a decent living on their platform, Twitch basically just made a move to drive them away whilst simultaneously signalling to any company who offers sponsorships that theirs is a platform that is too restrictive to do business with. This was... just a really stupid business move all around. Or was it?

Because whilst Twitch can slap down the 'walk back' Tweet and talk about what a crazy unhinged mistake they made, eagle eyed observers saw very clearly how Twitch removed only the craziest elements of their changes and left the more innocuous and vague language untouched within their guidelines. Classic misdirection tactic here- make a massive over reach which riles up the industry with two steps towards your goal, pretend to be sorry and take one step back letting everyone think they have the victory, wait some time and do it again. Now Twitch have slightly more control over the rights of Sponsors and flaunt the right to bring down the ban hammer on anyone they feel threatened by or, most cynically, anyone who appears to be making a chunk of change that Twitch wishes they could get a cheeky swipe of. Textbook and elegant manipulation; we'll see how that works out for them.

But whereas Twitch is at the beginning of their scheme, let's shift gears to a man at the very end of his successful grift in which he managed to weasel out of an absolute gauntlet of mayhem. Bobby 'Working class hater' Kotick.  The man from Activision has survived an absolute whirlwind of chaos after his years of facilitating the worst practises within the company came out in explosive fashion. The way that workers were treated, women were harassed, and the way that Bobby himself allegedly threatened someone's life. Honestly a guy like that should probably not be on the board of any company as he himself agrees- although in the same breath he denied any validity in the accusations in a recent interview he conducted as something of a victory lap about the job he still inexplicably has.

And let me be absolutely clear; despite his grandstanding that "No CEO who had actually done the thing I'm claimed to have done would still be in my position"; (that's paraphrased) there have been real consequences of Bobby's image degradation. Not least of all a total breakdown of relations with their partners in China which led to the shutting down of Blizzard's WOW China severs and a vehement rejection of the Activision brand- all because of Bobby. The man was another pressure point in the Microsoft deal, but somehow managed to worm his way into keeping his job without sacrificing the buyout. Like all the worst people in history the man is an absolute cockroach, scurrying across the bombed-out ruins of everything around him.

 

Yet today I find myself at further odds with him then I've ever been before, you wanna know why? This comment: "-we did not have a systemic issue with harassment — ever,” he said in the interview. “But what we did have was a very aggressive labor movement working hard to try and destabilize the company.”. Yes, he's using the investigation that they paid off to be a puff piece as vindication to villainize and attack the company unions. And then he goes on to gab about how 'pro union' he is, because his mother was a teacher and that simple fact alone means he would never stamp on the necks of his company workers whilst using them as scapegoats. All he wants is for the union to "play by the rules". Or more appropriately, to kneel before the headsman's axe when he needs an easy out. 

You see, that is the temperature of modern business, lies and deception pump through the veins of all these sadistic CEO's and their psychopath-aspirant sycophant executives- which is what makes their kind an absolute plague on the world of art. And this style of business deviancy is only going to expand. Like a disease, a pathogen carried on the almighty dollar bill and swept on the rolling wind of growing commerce. That's the same reason why Konami killed off it's quality game arm to specialise in gambling and mobile money sinks, why Bethesda's Fallout 76 charges $100 a year for a decent inventory system, and why Sports games shudder at the very concept of 'new assets'. Best start believing in megacorp dystopias- you're living in one!

Twitch is going through it right now

 Do you need someone to talk to, Twitch?

Queen Elizabeth II is dead. I don't think I've discussed that before, she died a couple of weeks ago I think but I just didn't really have any cause to bring it up, honestly. And why am I bringing it up now? Because I never knew that it was the Queen who was keeping Twitch together with her constant presence. It seems that behind the scenes old Liz was casting her sorcerer abilities over the powers that be at Amazon's only successful gaming foray to try and keep everyone sane, and it worked for the most part. I mean sure, there's been rumblings and grumblings and the odd crazy spark of abject lunacy, but the general health of the platform has remained solid. People have let their masks of sanity slip once at a time, and not too often, so everyone has a chance to heal. After the passing of the old Queen, however; all of that changed. Every single fibre of the great plant that is Twitch has withered into nothingness before the crowd as the powers that be have decided not to play with fire, but swallow in whole in a flagrant act of self immolation.

I think in the great discussion of the game's industry, streaming is a huge part of what makes modern gaming so widespread and accepted as an aspect of society. When it comes to really assessing the cultural impact that a video game has had, the number of Twitch viewers it draws in is a pretty decent litmus test for quantifying the unquantifiable. A certain breed of gamers out there like flocking to streaming sites in order to watch their games be played by a personality they like, I used to enjoy that somewhat myself back when I could stomach spending that sort of time. Thus when a game isn't doing so well on Steam chart numbers, chances are it won't be making streaming numbers either. There are other uses of Twitch too, community building or some such, but I'm really just here for the data analysis, I don't care much one way or the other when it comes to communities of gamers birthing out of the earth.

Of course, we tend to look at Streaming and Twitch as interchangeable, even when alternatives have and will continue to exist. Twitch hold no patent on the concept of streaming, even with all that Amazon money sitting in their piggy bank; which means when questionable choices are made that have a negative effective on every streamer currently working with and any that might arise in the future, the first thing the world does is turn to their competitors to see if they're going to jump on this free opportunity to seize a chunk of the market share. One such competitor is no small beast in their own right, being Youtube.com the second most visited site on the Internet. (Twitch is the 28th) Which is why if Twitch wants to do anything silly, at the very least it needs to keep it's head above whatever Youtube has going on.

Now on an individual creator level these past two weeks have been pretty insane with one moderately known streamer turning out be a gambling addict who had scammed upwards of $300,000 out of fellow streamers and viewers to feed their habit. A sad story there. Oh, and then there was a huge upset with various member of OTK, who I believe to be the biggest cluster of streaming friends although I may be wrong on that, haven been outed for taking part in a cover-up of a sexual assault case conducted by a friend of the group. A disturbing tale. Oh, and the recent Chess Drama with one of the best players in the world being beaten by a middle weight whom he subtly implied cheated someone spilled onto streaming when the two of them hosted a rematch only for the champ to leave after two moves. There has just been a rollercoaster of madness kicking about this particular sector of the Multiverse, what could Twitch possibly do to muscle in and somehow still make themselves the most spit on party in all of this? What they always do, of course; screw up the platform.

The first way Twitch made headlines was through, presumably in response to the gambling addict situation even though I'm fairly certain he wasn't actually gambling on Twitch, banning a vast majority of the gambling streams that were prevalent on the platform. Mostly slots streams but expanding onto gambling services that aren't licenced in the US. A big shake-up to a lot of Streamers and a volatile issue for simply how much money some people have made off streams like that. Heck, even Drake logged onto Twitch one day to do some gambling, and lost a simply obscene amount of money in doing so. Still, stripping away the nuance and 'perspectives' on the story, allows us to see this as a single positive headline that Twitch put up against the armies of negativity that would drown it out after their next correspondence.

And that's because Twitch decided to hit their Streamers where it's going to hurt; their split of revenue. Streamers have two direct methods of receiving payment for their work, one is getting subscription money and donations and the other is ad revenue. Ads make for something of a raw deal, however, given the fact that Twitch hasn't discovered how to set up a 'skip ad' button and forcibly bombards new views with several consecutive adverts whenever they click on a stream. (Really kicking discoverability in the ass as new viewers don't have the patience to sit through that, as I'm sure you've noticed if you've ever gone Twitch channel surfing.) Of course, I'd imagine that Twitch's reticence towards skippings goes quite some way to making Twitch ads more valuable for the platform, but the monkey paw deal makes it one of the most annoying ways to run your Twitch channel. No, for most people it's all about subs.

Which is why it's so galling for Twitch that they offer the worst rates in the list of major Streamer platforms today. 50/50. Outdone by Youtube and Onlyfans. (Yes, even Onlyfans offers a better deal.) Still, there is a special 70/30 cut that Twitch offers to the top of the top, which brings the going rate in line with the rest of the industry. A special deal that for many is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that keeps them burning that midnight oil in the hopes that one day senpai Twitch will notice the- oh, and they just got rid of it. Yep, no more 70/30; now it's 50/50 forever and for everyone. A move that Twitch could only ever justify to itself by arguing that they're the biggest streaming platform and so can get away with offering a worse deal than everyone else because hey, where else are our streamers going to go? Youtube? Their chat functions are trash! Yes, Twitch are using their size to try and strongarm their users into accepting a crappy fund split. That is how you murder a budding good PR buzz!

Of course Twitch has an olive branch; they've upped the share revenue of Ads just in case you actively hate having a growing viewer count and want to chase off potential newcomers. Gee, Twitch, ain't you nice? But these are the steps they have to take because, as they pointed out themselves as a way to try and shift blame, running Twitch with high quality video streaming is just so very expensive. Amazon Web Services have them bent over a barrel with their streaming rates... oh wait... isn't Twitch owned by Amazon? You're telling me that an Amazon owned company, that is one of most visited sites on the Internet, can't knock next door to ask for more favourable rates? Amazon is charging Amazon too much money so the creator's have to foot the bill? No one was ever going to buy figures like that and Twitch are dreaming if they think their sheer size is going to be enough to brag all this hate off.

Big streamers are already talking about their feelings of switching to Youtube, and whilst we're talking about drama addicts here who'll say anything for the limelight; at least some of them have to be serious. Twitch themselves shared how 1% of the top streamers just barely subsidies the entire platform, and if those people start leaving, Twitch is going to become more and more of a chore to run. Smaller streamers aren't going to get that overwash, those viewers will follow their Streamer of choice, and if Youtube makes the bare minimum change to their streaming services, it might as well be a death knell for Twitch. And in business, the one thing you never want to do is place the tools of your own destruction in the hands of a competitor. Because that's stupid. So watch the skies of the industry over 2023, I have a feeling that skyscrapers are about to go tumbling.

Streamlabs is getting coal for Christmas

 What's that? I can't hear your justified complaints!

So I don't partake in streaming. I've not reached that level of my descent into narcissism where I believe other people will want to watch me play games in their free time whilst I natter away at inconsequential garbage. But despite my tone, that's not born from any moral objection I have against those that do, but simply because I don't have a rig powerful enough to do so. Although with the absolute impossibility it has been trying to get my hands on those new consoles, I'm reaching the point where I'm bookmarking 'build your own PC' guides. The 3090 can't still be that expensive, can it? (Woah yes it can, nevermind. 2 thousand? What the heck? You want a lease on my soul and my firstborn too, Nvidia?) Still, I watch some streams every now and then, get involved in the excitement of watching gameplay from folk with more charisma than I, and so I am familiar enough with that sort of world to know what a seismic and unexpected shake-up it is to have Streamlabs get outed as a terrible platform that everyone with a conscious should abandon post-haste.

To be clear, I know enough about how important they are, not how they work. (Go to a streamer for that intimate knowledge.) But as I understand it, Streamlabs and OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) are platforms that facilitate video recording and live streaming. Which isn't to say that one couldn't stream without their help, but the standardised quality of what a stream should be and how it should work was set by the standards that OBS helped establish. They made it accessible to the everyman to create quality-looking set-ups with elements, integrations with the streaming platform and a streamlining of the fiddlier parts of running a professional stream. And as you can imagine for a type of media which has steadily become a profession for a few lucky people out there, such accessibility is literally essential for their daily lives. As such it should come as little surprise that these sorts of platforms are considered essential tools for the aspiring streamer out there, the thing they must learn how to walk with first before they can run and fly as a wisecracking, wit-spewing, internet streamer. (At least that's the norm for game streaming, I'm not as familiar with other... types of streaming...)

OBS is the OG in this regard. (or OBS Studio, as it is now officially known) It's free and open-source, which basically means that everyone who worked on it did so with the passion of wanting to make streaming more open for everyone and actively wants to encourage others to hop onto that mission with their own expertise. As you can expect, they survive off of donations on Patreon and don't try to skim anything off of the users or viewers. So you don't really need a degree in basic narrative composition to see where this is going right? I mean if life simulates art, and you know how any story goes, then you know where I'm going with this next, don't you? I'll give you a really big clue, OBS aren't going to the bad guys in this story. Which leaves only one other type of streaming platform that I've already mentioned, conveniently enough. Streamlabs.

So in comes TwitchAlerts, I mean Streamlabs. (Wow, that first company name was really short-sighted. That's probably the most well-advised name change I've seen in years.) They essentially are a company trying to do what OBS does but with more of a streamlined set-up, and here's the part where my knowledge falls away, because this comes down to preference from here on out. I've heard some streamers lament that Streamlabs is an overall lesser experience with worse functionality and even if you buy into it's premium subscription service, you can never get your hands on customer support. Again, I must impress, this is second hand and anecdotal, but I've heard voices who I respect enough to, whilst maybe not believe their every word to the letter, at least retreat to the old proven adage of "Where there's smoke, there's most likely fire." So Streamlabs isn't as lovingly made as OBS is. Good thing they launched StreamlabsOBS together then, right?

Not too long ago, another streaming service called Lightstream posted a meme pointing out the fact that Streamlabs appeared to have totally ripped off the design of their website and... yeah, if you look at the images it's pretty clear to see how that ain't no coincidence. Point in case, they even went so far as to copy the testimonials at the bottom of the page word-for-word only changing the context to make it about them. (That's... just impressively lazy for a plagiariser) It was on this day that another shoe dropped, on Streamlabs' one remaining good foot, when OBS, saints that they are, spoke up about the fact that StreamlabsOBS had absolutely nothing to do with them. Oh yes. Streamlabs had recognised the reverence that the streaming community had placed on OBS, all that trust, and decided to just steal their name out from under them. In the words of a demonic court jester- "Awow!"

OBS, being sweethearts far too good to be subjected to this nonsense, reached out to Streamlabs quietly in order to request they changed their name to prevent any mistaken collaboration, but were met with pure silence. This name change happened in early 2019, by the way, so Streamlabs had plenty of time to check their inbox. As a consequence, OBS' team have reported several instances of aggrieved customers calling up OBS to complain about their Streamlabs issues and then getting angry at OBS for the issues with Streamlab's software, how screwed up is that? It all worked out in Streamlabs' favour, however, because they managed to fool the entire world for a least a couple of years by just keeping quiet. Now, however, they've been outed as bullying a non-profit enthusiast project for clout... yeah, that's going whack your popularity a little.

Funnily enough, it wasn't too long after all of this came out that Streamlabs magically renamed themselves back to just 'Streamlabs'. (Funny how that happens.) But that hasn't really been enough for them to save face. Suspicions were already on the company due to the apparent unreliability of the service and way that the app does every legal thing in it's power to stop you from unsubscribing, from telling you that the service is down when you first press, to highlighting the 'keep me subscribed button' and greying out the continue, to throwing a giant screen of text at you on the final hurdle whilst scribbling the 'cancel anyway' button in small hyperlinked text that is coloured a very similar colour to it's backdrop, isn't contained in a button like every other option before it was, and is on the left hand side of the context box whilst every other option has been on the right hand side. (There's got to be some consumer laws against that nonsense.) But hearing this just confirmed the heavy suspicions that these guys are disingenuous and crude busybodies that none one with an informed view of streaming will want to associate themselves with.

The worst part of this, at least from Streamlabs' point-of-view, is that streaming isn't like Youtube or Tiktok, with their thousands of content creators all operating on their own little islands from one another. Streamers tend to be tight knit, and travel in their extended circles even when streaming by themselves, so news of a disreputable member of the typical streamer start-up pantheon is going to spread. Although I can't say that this is a miscarriage of justice given the generally mean and dismissive attitude that this company treated it's contemporaries with. This is literally how I'd expect Dick Dastardly to run a streaming platform. (That's 'Wacky Races and Catch the Pigeon' Dick Dastardly, not 'surprise 3rd act weirdo main villain in that scooby Doo movie' Dick Dastardly. It's mean spirited, but not cartoonishly evil just yet) So now this company is learning that most salient and heartfelt of moral lessons that has been passed down from culture to culture, hegemony to monarchy, theocracy to democracy, and now from individual to company: don't be a dick, man. Sheesh.  

The role of Streaming in gaming.

It reaches forever

As gaming starts to really develop into more of a mainstream presence, I find myself regarding and assessing the components that make up that community, which leads me to asking a question now and then: just how important is this to gaming. Know that I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but in as clinical a manner as possible; how has streaming and Internet culture influenced the growth of the gaming community? I've never been too far into the whole world of Twitch and streaming, so for me I've always been in the position of an outside observer, but I recognise it's significance. Just as much as YouTube has done wonders for spreading gaming culture further than ever before, Twitch has bought competitive gaming into the limelight in a way that traditional TV could never achieve and that makes it significant in the discussion of gaming in my book.

I think there is a certain 'interactivity' with Twitch that steps just one foot above even YouTube at times when it comes to the building of a community, and that makes it the perfect ground for the spreading of a shared culture. For Twitch, a platform ostensibly primarily focused on gaming, that means the shared love of gaming can enjoy extended proliferation over the globe. The act of being able to sit down, put on a game you love, and broadcast that experience for all the world to see is the sort of heart-to-heart that can really draw eyes. Whatsmore, in the wake of the pandemic and other events that I really don't feel like discussing, Twich has become something of a last bastion for the bored and lonely who lack the creativity and/or drive to sit down and make a YouTube and have the common sense to stay away from Facebook. The amount of folk from all walks of life that have jumped into the land of game streaming over the past few months or so really showcases the breadth and power of such a streaming service for the industry.

But speaking of YouTube, the term 'Streaming' isn't exclusive to a live feed that is broadcast to you, no, it also works for VOD. (Yes, I know YouTubers livestream as well, but the community isn't as tight knit so I'm overlooking that.) In terms of hobbies that they cater to, YouTube actually has a much wider net to cast over the world in comparison to the primarily gaming-focused Twitch, but that doesn't mean they've had a lesser effect on the gaming community. Indeed it seems that since the dawn of time, when man first crawled out of that primordial muck, there were 'Let's plays' ready and waiting for them to spend their hours watching, as well as 'jumpscare compilations.' (God, who remember's those abominations?)

Personally, as someone who has paid much more attention to the goings on over at YouTube, it's a lot easier for me to talk about the way that platform has helped shape the future of marketing. (Which isn't to denigrate Twitch's hand in that, I'm just less familiar with the specifics.) One of the most profound examples of this lies in the whole 'influencer' trend that has spawned out of the YouTube format. Seemingly 'ordinary' people with a wide variety of specific hobbies and preferences, all of which draw very specific crowds, makes for an ideal petri-dish for those that look to target their marketing efforts to their target audiences. (That is more cost effective afterall.) Out of this a practise has grown of teams reaching out to YouTubers who's audience fits the demographic of their games in order to slide directly in front of the right eyes. This is arguably what led to the smash success of 2016's DOOM and Mortal Kombat X; thus proving that the streaming platforms can be symbiotic in relationship to the industry given the right circumstances.

However that is not always the case. Streaming, in terms of Twitch and YouTube, is still a form of Social Media, and social media is notoriously difficult to predict and effect the mood of. As such, social media sites can be the perfect breeding grounds for a successful marketing campaign or the staging ground for a burn campaign that can sink you to the ground. Point-in-case; look at Fallout 76. A game which failed to land with practically anyone significant in the online Fallout community in it's initial reveal. (Which may be in part due Bethesda's wanton misleading advertising that people picked up on quickly.) Now of course, the game was a mess at launch and rightly deserved a lot of it's criticism, things were so poor, in fact, that the team spent a great many months desperately scrambling to fix things together.

In the year and a half since, Fallout 76 has been forged into a decent title that perhaps still isn't exactly deserving of it's namesake, but certainly isn't the dumpster fire it started out as. But as a momentum-based construct, the hearts of Social Media aren't ever really interested in changing their minds about a product, once they have an opinion they have it for life. Now you could argue for days about whether or not this is a good or bad thing, whether this is deserved accountability or blind bandwagoning; but the effect is that when a mistake is made on the global stage, the folks of the various streaming platforms will use that leverage to drive your game into the ground. Just look at Fallout, as I've mentioned, and the way that all of that game's good improvements are ignored over any perceived wrongdoings. When Bethesda announced their 'battle pass' systems, the entire Internet latched onto it to call Bethesda greedy and manipulative for throwing yet more monetisation on a game not deserving of it. Only that wasn't the case, as Bethesda then came out and clarified that the Battlepass system would be free for everyone, and how did the community respond? Silence. No apologies, no backtracking, just silence.

This is the same sort of treatment that Battlefront 2 went through during it's lifetime, despite how actually great that title turned out being; or what Anthem will go through when it relaunches after it's hibernation. Changing hearts and minds is one thing but changing the course of Internet chatter is nigh on impossible. Although that doesn't mean that smaller, less popular, communities can't find a home on Streaming sites every now and then. The entire Internet, including myself, practically vomited when The Culling returned with it's laughably asinine business model, and yet that game still has a rotation of Twitch streamers who play it. (Sure, that rotation is of about 4 people, and none are Online as of the time of me writing this, but that still counts for something, right?) Even this small gesture is enough to stir the pot of community and provide some grounds for games to grow from.

And all of that isn't taking into account the games that owe their success to the sharing of streaming and VODs, like Undertale, Doki Doki Literature Club, Surgeon Simulator, I Am Bread, and all games of that ilk. So at it's most basic level, the streaming landscape is a potential wild card ruled by trends and gut emotion and cowboy lawlessness, but at it's best it can be an amplifying beacon that shares itself with the world. Somewhere within that mixture there lies the face of the modern game community, and perhaps a hint of where that industry might head in the future. Of course, this is just a perfunctory glance into such a world and there are plenty more specific branches of this topic that I intend to touch on. But that's for another blog.