Top Twitch streamers recently expressed their displeasure with reports that the Amazon-owned platform is planning to boost profits by reducing partnership payouts.
Twitch is considering a number of changes, according to Bloomberg News, in order to increase revenue from its most popular streamers. Encourage streamers to run more ads; reduce revenue share for streamers from 70% to 50% and introduce a new tier system that allows streamers to graduate through different revenue splits based on set metrics.
Twitch could release partners from exclusivity clauses as a concession, allowing them to stream on competitors like YouTube and Facebook. Updates to the partnerships program aren’t finalized and could be abandoned, while Twitch declined to comment on the news.
Many streamers responded by saying that the proposed changes would make life more difficult and may force them to switch to competing platforms. Others pointed out that Twitch has no serious competition in the streaming world, allowing it to reap profits as it pleases.
Hasan Piker, a left-wing Twitch streamer, said it was “wild” that Twitch didn’t think its current revenue splits were profitable enough, but that the platform’s biggest names have nowhere else to go.
However, some streamers saw some benefits in the Bloomberg report. The Amazon-owned streaming service currently has around 51,000 people in its partnership program, according to data platform TwitchTracker. Subscribers can pay $5 per month to subscribe to channels perks include custom emoticons and ad-free content if the streamer allows it, with Twitch splitting the revenue with content creators.
Twitch’s revenue figures aren’t disclosed by Amazon, but the company’s overall growth has slowed. Despite the fact that sales increased nearly $8 billion year over year in Q1, analysts were disappointed by Amazon’s lower-than-expected Q2 projections.
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