Twitch is a great way for gamers to share their experiences through the internet. It’s also a very popular way of pointing audiences toward other content creators. For the longest time, the platform provided a way for people to not only stream their own content, but to feature content from other live streamers. It was called Host Mode. However, despite being one of the service’s more commonly used features, hosting is now going away — and here’s why.
No More Hosting On Twitch
Longtime Twitch viewers are likely already familiar with Host Mode. Streamers can, depending on privacy settings, host the content of other creators on their own stream. It’s a simple way to give exposure to other creators. However, it doesn’t actually give views to the other content, nor does it foster interactivity with the hosted party. And that latter point seems to be the main problem.
According to a page on the Twitch Help website, Host Mode is being deprecated in order to better align with viewer expectations. Specifically, it’s being axed to help increase interactivity between viewers and host. Here’s what the FAQ has to say:
“We made the decision to deprecate [Host Mode] because the experience it delivers to viewers doesn’t match their expectations when they come to Twitch. Viewers want to interact with a streamer when they’re live and host mode blocks this from happening. Preventing viewers from interacting with the streamer they’re watching also limits a streamer’s growth potential because they’re not able to build meaningful connections with those new viewers.”
Host Mode will disappear on October 3, 2022. At that point, the base commands will simply no longer work. If you’re a streamer, this means you won’t be able to feature other hosts’ content on your streams. However, you will still be able to send raids as before.
Otherwise, to continue fostering community, Twitch now recommends suggesting other hosts to your followers while actively streaming. Alternatively, you can try giving them a shout-out in your offline profile.
