Twitch revolutionized how people shared gaming with the world, but recently has been earning negative attention for business decisions. The biggest of these revolves around the decision to exclusively offer a 50/50 revenue split among streamers of all levels. This comes close to the heels of their plan to show as many advertisements as possible, no matter what level a streamer may have. Not only will this chase away potential streamers, but the platform stands to lose established names to other sites.
Twitch Maintains Its Revenue Split Decision
Now over a decade old, Twitch is no longer the only option that people have to stream their gaming. While it still remains one of the most-used platforms, the decision to establish a 50/50 revenue split for all streamers has cast doubts upon the company. When questioned about this decision, Twitch’s chief of monetization Mike Minton answered during Twitchcon. Eurogamer covered Minton’s response with the bottom line being:
“Could we do it, could we offer 70/30 widely and broadly, and the answer is no. It is simply not viable for Twitch in the long term.”
Twitch has come a long way since its launch, and with success comes the desire for even more success. Once big players such as Ninja started to appear and bring in subscriptions, more and more ads began to pop up.
In the early days, people would stream in hopes of growing a following large enough to become an affiliate. This would unlock perks and allow them to run ads during their stream in order to earn revenue. Should they get bigger, they can qualify for partner status which offers even more perks. Behind the scenes, Twitch would offer a higher revenue split for select streamers, while everyone else had just 50/50. Now, everyone is being offered the same split, and ads are likely to become even more numerous.
Twitch is thinking about increasing its own profits at the cost of its streamers’ revenues. The 50/50 split will likely have more members turning their heads toward the ongoing 70/30 split provided by YouTube, meaning that Twitch will need to find another way to compete.
