Twitch is an American video live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and “in real life” streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch’s current homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games (RTS), fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters. The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of its general-interest counterpart. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers, and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth-largest source of peak Internet traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv’s parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014. That month, the service was acquired by Amazon for US$970 million, which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company’s subscription service Amazon Prime. Twitch acquired Curse in 2016, an operator of online video gaming communities, and introduced means to purchase games through links on streams along with a program allowing streamers to receive commissions on the sales of games that they play. By 2015, Twitch had more than 100 million viewers per month. In 2017, Twitch remained the leading live-streaming video service for video games in the United States and had an advantage over YouTube Gaming, which shut down its standalone app in May 2019. As of February 2020, it had 3 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users, with 1.4 million average concurrent users. As of May 2018, Twitch had over 27,000 partner channels.
Subscribing is the easiest way to support a creator on Twitch. Creators can offer custom emotes, badges, and more to subscribers. A Subscription allows a viewer to pay per month to support your channel if you are a Partner or Affiliate, either on a recurring or one-time basis. Subscribers (subs) get access to your emotes and other benefits you can define. At a minimum, a subscription costs $4.99 per month. There are additional tiers that cost $9.99 per month and $24.99 per month, though what this will give depends on the channel; it won’t necessarily give you anything different. A subscription is on a per-channel basis. Your single subscription cost goes towards one channel of your choice. If you want to subscribe to a second channel, that’s a separate cost (so two-channel subscriptions at the lowest tier will cost you $9.98/month.) When you subscribe to a channel, the streamer will receive a percentage of the payment. The rest will go to Twitch. The exact split varies depending on what deal the streamer has with Twitch. The exact benefits you will receive from your Twitch subscription depend on the channel that you are subscribing to and the tier that you choose. Some common benefits are emojis designed specifically for the channel you subscribe to, which you can use in any other Twitch stream, a badge displayed next to your name, which can change depending on how long you have been a subscriber, during a live stream, you can press a button to alert others to how long you’ve been a subscriber, exclusive subscriber-only streams or competitions, no adverts during a stream, you only get these benefits as long as you are a subscriber.
Additionally, Twitch Turbo and Twitch Prime are two separate membership schemes that Twitch offers. Neither is the same thing as a Twitch subscription, though it’s easy to confuse them due to overlapping benefits. You can be a member of Twitch Turbo, and Twitch Prime, and be a Twitch subscriber. All three are individual. Twitch Turbo is a membership scheme that costs $8.99/month. It grants you the following benefits across every channel: – no advertisements, a badge displayed next to your name, the use of additional sets of emojis, the change in your username color, and then save your past broadcasts for 60 days instead of 14. Twitch Prime is a membership scheme only available if you have an Amazon Prime subscription. If you do, it’s free. With Twitch Prime, you get the following benefits – a badge displayed next to your name, use additional sets of emojis, change your username color, save your past broadcasts for 60 days instead of 14, some free games and in-game loot, and one free Twitch subscription per month.
Twitch customer support can be contacted using a contact form. To access the contact form, just visit https://help.twitch.tv/s/contactsupport. You will need to provide your first name, last name, email address, phone number, and billing address.
