We often speak about games we both love and hate; in my case, that game is League of Legends. However, we need to spend more time discussing the streaming platforms that make us feel the same way.
One platform I both love and really, really dislike is also the topic of today’s news. Twitch is a live streaming service focusing on video game live streaming and girls in hot tubs. Because, of course, it does.
But today, we aren’t talking about some of the more dubious content that ends up being streamed under the guise of gaming. Today, we’re talking about public outcry that directly results from Twitch changing its advertising guidelines.
These changes that Twitch had announced would take effect from July of this year would restrict the kinds of overlays streamers could use to advertise for a charity or a product brand, including a ban on burned-in ads. Twitch would also be limiting the size of ad overlays to 3% of screen space, which is a minimal amount of space.
We wanted to clarify our existing ads policy that was intended to prohibit third party ad networks from selling burned in video and display ads on Twitch, which is consistent with other services.
— Twitch (@Twitch) June 6, 2023
Now, these changes aren’t the only things that have the community up in arms, with many still reeling from the shift in revenue split between Twitch and streamers, but it is the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak and has led to popular streamer Asmongold calling for an outright boycott of Twitch.
The Twitch community has taken so negatively to these proposed changes that Twitch took to social media to issue an apology less than two hours after announcing them.
In the apology, Twitch acknowledged that it had missed the mark and was overly broad in its scope. The company then claimed it would not limit streamers’ ability to take sponsorships. However, the one thing the company didn’t do is rescind the policy changes, which has seen many of the top Twitch streamers respond to the apology openly considering leaving Twitch for other platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
But now I want to know whether you use Twitch to stream, and if so, what are your thoughts on these upcoming changes? Let me know in the comments.