Twitch doesn't just want to stream every game, they want to sell them too

Games
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Twitch doesn’t just want to stream every game, they want to sell them too Twitch is going to take on Steam. Ever since the streaming service was purchased by Amazon in 2014, people have been waiting for the big business strategy to appear. With Amazon’s successful forays into original television content, it was easy to guess that they wanted to get in on game streaming early. While the majority of Twitch’s revenue comes from partnerships with big-name streamers and publishers’ marketing arms, the “Why Amazon?” question has been looming throughout. We got a partial answer in September of last year when Amazon announced that their Prime subscription service would bundle a premium Twitch membership, but would that be it? Amazon was just going to use Twitch as a value-add for their service offer? Thanks to the Twitch Launcher currently in beta, Twitch will soon be selling games directly. When the program launches, viewers will be able to purchase the games they watch on Twitch through the launcher. The streamer will get a 5% cut of the sale, and the purchaser will get a Twitch Crate for every $5 they spend containing game-specific emotes, chat badges, or Bits, the Twitch currency used to “tip” streamers. According to Twitch, they’ve already signed on Ubisoft, Telltale Games, Digital Extremes, Hi Rez Studios, Double Fine Games, and a host of others. Twitch Partner streamers can check out how to get in on the money here. Non-partner streamers will get to participate too! They just won’t get any money. _An offer to buy a game or in game content will appear on all streamer channel pages when a game is being played that is offered for sale by Twitch. Only partnered streamers will be eligible to earn revenue through this program._ Buying games on Twitch will begin this spring.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2017/02/27/twitch-doesnt-just-want-stream-every-game-want-sell/
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It’s been clear for a while that Amazon is gunning for Steam, and Twitch gives them the avenue that Origin, Uplay, and even Gog didn’t have access to.

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Oh look, another feature that only helps out partners! Except from the wording here (ie: it isn’t optional) it sounds like this one makes things actively worse for non-partners by turning their streams into ads that they don’t benefit from. And they’re tying in a loot box mechanic. Gross.

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Yeah I don’t like that part at all. No opting out for anyone.

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As long as they don’t start exclusivity bullshit, I am all for actual competition to Steam, but as someone who doesn’t have any desire to use Twitch I am not seeing any incentive to buy games from them.

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I mean to be fair, Twitch shows ads on all streams regardless of partner status so I’m not sure how this is any different. Twitch is giving streamers a pretty good platform for free to stream to and gain audience with.

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Well, they’re already getting exclusive DLC for Twitch Premium/Amazon Prime members (nothing big yet) so I can almost guarantee that we’ll see exclusive games eventually.

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I was okay with this until I learned they’ll be using their own launcher. Fuck. That.

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As I understand it, while most streamers don’t make the bulk of their money from Twitch paying them for advertisements as a partner, every successful streamer is a Twitch partner. So I’m not sure why excluding non-partners is particularly meaningful-- their pages have always had ads, and they never made money off them.

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Then I can only hope it will be stuff aimed at being streamed, which usually has no value to me.

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Amazon does have their own studios so…

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“Some”, sure. But are we going to see any worthwhile exclusive games? Amazon Game Studios sure isn’t going to produce them, judging by their track record and by the big names they hire leaving before even getting one game out.

So it’d really have to be buying exclusivity for third party games, just like the TV streaming model mostly works. Except the business model of games is dramatically different from that of TV shows.

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Doesn’t it feel like it’s time to stop freaking about launchers? Whatever viable alternative to Steam that emerges is going to have to have a launcher.

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I feel the same way. Mentally I fought the battle against launchers when Origin was giving away free games. Once they won me over, I say bring on the other launchers. Origin, Steam, GoG, UPlay, the more the merrier. Competition is good.

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More serious competition for Steam is good (including for Steam).

I am not sold on the Twitch tie in though. That feels like a second tier feature you would add after you have your platform stood up and gained decent market share.

Still its a welcome move.

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I’m waiting for a launcher that can seamlessly integrate all these launchers.

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You can launch non-steam games from steam, so there already is one…

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But it doesn’t integrate them in any meaningful way. it’s just sticking a shortcut in your library.

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Are any of these players going to take less than 30%? That will be how you cause movement.

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itch.io lets you decide how much they get. Its also the most developer friendly BY FAR of any distro platform out there. The downside is it brings you zero free marketing dollars in terms of discovery. Aside from that, its the best for devs, hands down.

I published a game on it this weekend in less than 30 mins. Now THATS ease of use! :)