Twitch has apparently had enough of streamers making money from advertising deals without getting a share. There are now new regulations that will make it significantly more difficult for streamers to monetize their channels.
What are these guidelines? The guidelines for sponsored content regulate how streamers can promote products or services in their streams. Today, June 6, 2023, new rules have been issued that will come into effect on July 1.
The new guidelines primarily affect deals that content creators enter into with brands without Twitch’s involvement.
Overview of the new guidelines
This will be prohibited in the future:
- Brand logos displayed in the stream may only occupy 3% of the screen area
- Streamers may not embed advertising videos, advertising banners, or audio advertisements directly into their streams
This is allowed:
- Brand panels may still be integrated on the channel page
- Products may be presented in the background of the stream
- Links to other pages are allowed
- Products can be discussed and recommended, unboxing streams are also permitted
- Sponsored games can be played in the stream
Content creators are angry
What are the initial reactions? Anything but positive. Content creators accuse Twitch of deliberately making it more difficult for them to offer sponsored streams so that they have more incentive to use the platform’s controversial advertising offer (via Twitter).
We have compiled some reactions for you here:
- Evan Saverino: “Man, it’s like they want us to stop using the site or something. This is embarrassing” (via Twitter).
- LarryFishburger: “This platform keeps getting worse day by day” (via Twitter).
- EEEeee!: “The management of this site is astonishingly out of touch, that something like this was approved.”
- sackydude: “This means the end for events on Twitch or at least a significant restriction” (via Reddit).
- GuthixSucks: “Are they trying to kill their site? We will definitely see more people switching platforms” (via Reddit).
The German streamer Dracon has already stated that he will simply continue using the advertising clips until he is banned for it (via Twitter).
The anger is also high in the American space. The streamer and YouTuber Critikal comments: “It’s really impressive how Twitch manages to make the worst changes imaginable.”
It remains to be seen whether Twitch will reconsider after the initial strong reactions and adjust the guidelines before they come into effect on July 1.
However, the path that the streaming platform has taken has seemed clear since September 2022: They don’t want to simply make bandwidth available to streamers without earning a share.
