Twitch Bits/Cheers

Twitch announced earlier of a new donation-like system that will eventually be available to all Twitch Partners. In essence viewers can buy these ‘Bits’ and in return send them to a streamer of choice. Streamers then, at the end of the month, will receive a payout for the bits the received. This update has caused a lot of uproar within the community and while I don’t stream I’d like to give my opinion on it.

First and foremost this new cheer system is in beta and only a handful of Twitch Partners have access to it, so you won’t see it on every channel… Secondly, the cheer system is completely optional to both the streamer and viewer. Streamers will be able to choose whether or not they want to accept bits and instead stick to their own system (e.g. Twitch Alerts), while viewers can just not buy the bits.

A benefit to this system is because viewers are not paying streamers directly it eliminates charge backs altogether. Viewers buy bits through Twitch and keep the bits in their “Twitch wallet,” which they can use however they’d like.

Is this the best system Twitch could have come up with? Probably not, personally I would have liked it more if they didn’t add a chat message/emotes when someone cheers on a streamer.

All in all, I don’t think this update is that bad, but I would have rather liked to finally see the HTML5 playback finalized. Twitch is a business and businesses do need to make money in order to both survive and further expand its platform. This is just one way for them to gain revenue and time will tell if it flies or sinks.

This system is in beta and you can give your feedback to Twitch by taking this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TwitchCheer, you can also read the announcement article by visiting the Twitch.tv Blog.