Recently it became known that Twitch plans to cut subscription revenue for some top streamers in push toward ads. This innovation has become the subject of intense discussion by all gamers. Now the usual 70/30 subscription share rate is changing for popular Twitch streamers. The company wants to change the way things are done and reduce splits to 50/50. Because of this, Twitch may run into problems in trying to keep the biggest streamers.
It started with, large streamers asking Twitch to increase the percentage of payments from paid subscriptions for small channels. More than 20K people wrote a related petition on Twitch UserVoice. But instead, Twitch decided to introduce new rules and lower the percentage of payments to popular streamers.
On September 21, 2022, Twitch president Dan Clancy in his letter on the blog post, explained the innovation of subscription revenue shares:
“Delivering high definition, low latency, always available live video to nearly every corner of the world is expensive. Using the published rates from Amazon Web Services’ Interactive Video Service (IVS) — which is essentially Twitch video — live video costs for a 100 CCU streamer who streams 200 hours a month are more than 1000$ per month”.
The company stated that all streamers who have premium deals retain their 70/30 revenue share split for the first 100000$ earned with subscription revenue. But revenue above 100000$ will be split at the usually 50/50 share split. The date when a new rule is set to come into force - is June 1, 2023. After that date, all streamers will only be affected once their contract is up for renewal.
It sounds logical, but not all streamers can accept this argument. Because many people think that Twitch risks alienating some of its top streamers by changing the way they are compensated. And this is already happening. Some popular streamers (like FWiz, Jacksepticeye, Big E) expressed their displeasure. They say, that these Twitch actions cap the growth of the top creators and do nothing for the everyday streamers. The timing of Twitch's statement could also prove to be a problem for the company. There's something important to note however today some biggest streamers pass from exclusivity or even move to YouTube Gaming.
It looks like Twitch has abandoned individual personalities, making the wrong bet on “brand” oriented viewers. In any case, let's see what these innovations in the Twitch payment policy will lead to...
