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What's wrong about Twitch.tv


Revy ~ Two Hands

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The following is a copy and paste job from my tumblr

:muffins:  http://comicconreviews.tumblr.com/  :derp: 

 

What’s wrong about Twitch.tv

 

Twitch.tv is a livestreaming service that connects gamers and audiences. That’s not corporate speil that’s my interpretation. The business model of Twitch however is a complete joke. 

 

Firstly twitch flat out encourages it’s uploaders to play music in their videos. I appreciate the liberty given with that, it certainly is nice to have something adverse to YouTube’s overly strict content Id system that automatically flags content that does not even have anything copyrighted on it. Additionally the automatic flagging system on YouTube does not take into account why copyrighted content is being used, for instance in my case I make game reviews and documentaries and so I often use game footage.

 

The issue with twitch.tv’s approach is that it both provides a haven for let’s players that may have wrongfully had to deal with needless copyright problems on YouTube but also does nothing to adress the inherient problems that lack of copyright rules will bring.

 

Want to play liscensed music in your gameplay video? On twitch.tv you can. I have no problem with this, I do however believe it’s needlessly risky. When copyright issues do occur and they will, streamers using twitch.tv won’t have recourse and rules will have to be enforced. Why not discourage using liscensed music in livestreams? I mean it’s one thing to have unwarranted copyright issues due to game footage or game music but it’s another to play a full eminem albulm over call of duty gameplay.

 

Copyright is a problem, I’ve had to delete videos I’ve worked hard on because of issues I’ve had with it, twitch.tv gives a good deal in that sense, but I doubt it’s sustainable. when copyright becomes a problem on the site there will not be a solution, no appeals process, nothing.

 

The other issue with twitch is audience retention. To give an example ‘AngryJoe’ who has over 1.4 million subsribers to his youtube channel and who garners 100,000’s of views per YouTube video is lucky to get a 1000 views on average for a livestream on twitch. That is insane. The only way to make money therefore on twitch is to charge a subscription of $4.99 a month.

 

It’s like the YouTube model before monetization came around in late 2007. Producers then where reliant on donations. Which from a business perspective hardly makes sense, with a large audience you can build relationships with marketers and advertisers. With twitch you can’t build those relationships because you’re audience is always

going to be meager.

 

~ Comic Con Reviews

 

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/comicconreviews

 

:catface: Hopefully you found this interesting, and what is your opinion on twitch.tv?  :catface:

Edited by Gamer Twilight
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i dont really use it, i think its a bit pointless when i can probably just watch it on youtube later anyway. if i found mlp live streamed id use it. and ive only ever gone on twitch once and that was a Halloween live stream. kinda fun, but went on for hours. 

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(edited)

i dont really use it, i think its a bit pointless when i can probably just watch it on youtube later anyway. if i found mlp live streamed id use it. and ive only ever gone on twitch once and that was a Halloween live stream. kinda fun, but went on for hours. 

I haven't watched much on Twitch.tv. Often streamers will upload a teaser/trailer type video on YouTube and then you can see the full thing on twitch. It's rare to see good streams and I always come in days if not weeks after they are archived on twitch but if the uploader doesn't also put it on YT it can be cool. I keep tabs on twitch for interesting content but I almost never find any.

 

I think livestreaming can be an interesting feature especially if you already follow someone on say YouTube, or Blip, or their website or blog or whatever but the twitch model is short sighted. I'll have to wait and see what happens. I hope I'm wrong as I myself want to have live interaction with my audience but I want whatever service I use to do that, to still be around in 2 years time and to give me oppurtunities to reach more people not struggle to maintain a tiny audience.

Edited by Gamer Twilight
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Twitch is a neat little innovation in gamer culture, to be sure. But yes, for the reasons you supplied, it would be very unreasonable for anyone to go to Twitch with the expectation of making a living. The simple fact of the matter is that YouTube is far larger than Twitch, both in terms of how much corporate backing it has and the size of its userbase, and both of these factor heavily into how much money a Twitch.tv personality can reasonably expect to make.

 

Any way you slice it, setting up shop on YouTube is simply a wiser decision to make if you're looking for a steady paycheck. (Assuming, of course, you know what type of content to keep out of your videos to best avoid getting flagged for copyright.)

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I haven't watched much on Twitch.tv. Often streamers will upload a teaser/trailer type video on YouTube and then you can see the full thing on twitch. It's rare to see good streams and I always come in days if not weeks after they are archived on twitch but itf the uploader doesn't also put it on YT it can be cool. I keep tabs on twitch for interesting content but I almost never find any.

 

I think livestreaming can be a interesting feature especially if you already follow someone on say YouTube, or Blip, or their website or blog or whatever but the twitch model is short sighted. I'll have to wait and see what happens. I hope I'm wrong as I myself want to have live interaction with my audience but I want whatever service I use to do that to still be around in 2 years time and to have oppurtunities to reach more people not struggle to maintain a tiny audience.

yeah, if i saw pewdiepie live streaming i would watch it because hes awesome. but youtube is there, so you know, i could watch it after its been live.

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(edited)

yeah, if i saw pewdiepie live streaming i would watch it because hes awesome. but youtube is there, so you know, i could watch it after its been live.

Some YouTuber's/Twitch streamers do both. They livestream on twitch then they upload it to YouTube say 2 days later. Often people who do that upload only a portion of their total uploaded library from twitch onto YouTube. If you're purely a let's player that makes sense, but I've seen too many people get <50 views for a livestream on twitch even after it's archived. Versus say 40,000 views on YouTube for that very same video or maybe even the livestream chopped into 2 videos (thus gaining them say 60,000-70,000 views).

Edited by Gamer Twilight
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Some YouTuber's/Twitch streamers do both. They livestream on twitch then they upload it to YouTube say 2 days later. Often people who do that upload only a portion of their total uploaded library from twitch onto YouTube. If you're purely a let's player that makes sense, but I've seen too many people get <50 views for a livestream on twitch even after it's archived. Versus say 40,000 views on YouTube for that very same video or maybe even the livestream chopped into 2 videos (thus gaining them say 60,000-70,000 views).

yeah, twitch isnt as popular as youtube though is it. so people tend to get less views.

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Livestreams have an element of uncut/unfilteredness to them that a lot of people find charming. Example, Zelda: Ocarina of Time speedrunner CosmoWright hits on average 5k viewers on a good night. He plays the same game 80% of the time and does the exact same route in an effort to reach the quickest possible game completion (his world record is 18:40 right now btw).

 

For me the fun is in listening to him talk random shit while he plays, in addition to seeing his reactions when he performs poorly, or even better, when he does spectacularly and sets a new record.

 

I am also a stream monster for game tournaments. I spent all of last weekend watching NorCal Regionals for Super Street Fighter IV and Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Sure, I can catch the matches later on YouTube, but it's like watching any other sporting event. Would you rather see it happen live or watch the tapes later? I suppose it just depends on the person.

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I don't think Twitch was even meant to be the kind of money making tool Youtube is. I see the ad revenue on Twitch as more of a nice bonus you get if you decide to use their service instead of some other. Twitch is different enough from Youtube and they don't need to worry about it being a competitor so Twitch doesn't need to offer people crazy amounts of money to have them use their service.

 

Youtube has also had eight years to build a massive community so of course they're gonna have more viewers. Also, it's really not fair to compare the view counts as videos can be watched anytime but with livestreams you only have a few hour time window that just doesn't fit to everyone's schedule. Sure, you have the archives but the main point of Twitch is the live stuff and that's what most people use it for. They aren't interested in old videos.

 

The guy you mentioned in the OP is also a bad example of the viewer problem. I watch this guy AnderZEL on Youtube. He has around 420k subs and constantly gets more than 5k viewers on his livestreams even when they happen on weekdays at 3 PM EST. It's all up to how you advertise the livestreams.

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I don't think Twitch was even meant to be the kind of money making tool Youtube is. I see the ad revenue on Twitch as more of a nice bonus you get if you decide to use their service instead of some other. Twitch is different enough from Youtube and they don't need to worry about it being a competitor so Twitch doesn't need to offer people crazy amounts of money to have them use their service.

 

Youtube has also had eight years to build a massive community so of course they're gonna have more viewers. Also, it's really not fair to compare the view counts as videos can be watched anytime but with livestreams you only have a few hour time window that just doesn't fit to everyone's schedule. Sure, you have the archives but the main point of Twitch is the live stuff and that's what most people use it for. They aren't interested in old videos.

 

The guy you mentioned in the OP is also a bad example of the viewer problem. I watch this guy AnderZEL on Youtube. He has around 420k subs and constantly gets more than 5k viewers on his livestreams even when they happen on weekdays at 3 PM EST. It's all up to how you advertise the livestreams.

This guy has less than a 1k views on average per video for the past 3 months. But yeah I get that twitch is a different platform, this does go to show my point that even if you upload regularly you can't maintain or build any kind of audience as the service currently stands.

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