The streaming platform Twitch has big plans for the future. Interaction between viewers and streamers is becoming increasingly important. Inspiration comes from Hunger Games. Soon, viewers could buy an advantage for their favorite streamer in games like PUBG.
The future of the streaming platform Twitch may lie in the Hollywood blockbuster “Hunger Games.” There, teenagers compete against each other in a battle royale match and fight for survival. Viewers can intervene in the battle with their wallets. This could also be an idea for Twitch!
Sponsoring from Hunger Games could soon come to Twitch
Wealthy benefactors can gift their favorite in “Hunger Games”: They can buy items such as medicine, food, or weapons. This is known as “Sponsorship” within the Panem universe.
The donations then float into the battlefield as parachutes. The audience favorite receives an advantage from this gift. They might survive longer and take out a few opponents.
Twitch sees this as a possible vision for the future.
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, it says: “Looking at how successful battle royale games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds are growing, it would be super cool to implement such mechanics: Viewers could then decide to help their favorite player or team through voting or with their wallets. The implementation of this idea is close.” This is said by Kevin Lin, one of the co-founders of Twitch.
Viewer interaction is becoming increasingly important
They see the new initiative “Twitch Extensions” here as an impetus to give developers more opportunities to experiment and tailor games directly for Twitch.
The trigger for the trend towards more viewer interaction was for Lin “Twitch Plays Pokémon.” This was a paradigm shift. The initiative started in February 2014. The Twitch chat directed the actions in Pokémon Red with somewhat contradictory commands. Over a million players participated in the somewhat chaotic event.
This was the moment when a game that was already great in itself received another level through interactivity with the fans.
Viewers against streamers – New ideas and experiments
Now, more and more studios are experimenting with such ideas:
In Streamline, a streamer plays against 15 of their viewers. The streamer has better weapons than their opponents, but the viewers can influence the game from the sidelines by voting or spending money. They can turn the ground into lava or force everyone to crawl like a crab.
Lin says: “We have big goals here. Our main concern is to give companies as many opportunities as possible when it comes to the commercialization of their content.”
Wait, but wouldn’t that be unfair?
Mein MMO thinks: One always notices when interviews come from business sides: The tone is significantly different than towards gaming sites.
The idea of “Buying your favorite streamer a weapon” may seem close from a business perspective. For the streamer and their viewers, it may also be quite fun. However, uninvolved players would surely be upset if they were taken out by a Twitch streamer because their fans wanted to pamper them.
In the past, “normal players” have been angry at supposed Twitch stars.
PUBG: “Stream Sniping” divides community – pampered Twitch stars?
