Twitch is an interactive live-streaming platform for content spanning gaming, entertainment, sports, music, and more. The Amazon-owned platform has seen a ton of growth but also gained many critics last year when they decided to shake some things up. Twitch launched experiments and improved tools and features to help address some of the common concerns of its creators. When they took away host mode — the ability for streamers to host each other’s content — the company received criticism. Now, the interactive platform is trying to get it right. Twitch recently announced its plans for 2023 and they are focusing on growth. Here’s what to expect from the popular gaming platform in 2023.

More ways to earn

Twitch will focus more on ensuring its creators earn from the platform. They will introduce Sound Bites — sound alerts that allow viewers to pay to interact with and support their favorite streamers. The company will also experiment with personalized discounts based on viewers’ behavior to influence streamer support. Twitch will also be testing features with a small group of streamers to make sponsorship deals more effective and authentic on the platform, which will allow the streamer to earn more and allow the brand to make an impact.

New tools

The platform will introduce new tools that reduce creators’ efforts to promote their streams on and off Twitch, such as editing tools to help streamers turn their clips into vertical, short-form videos to be easily shared on other platforms.

Twitch will also be rolling out tools to help viewers discover creators’ content, such as:

  • Pinned Clips – A new feature allowing creators to pin up to 20 channel clips to their pages.
  • Stream title emotes – The ability to add emotes to your stream title.
  • The Upcoming Streams section will be coming to Twitch mobile apps, which will help viewers keep track of and tune in to streams for all the streamers they follow, all in one place.

Ad improvements

Users have requested that Twitch’s Ads Incentive Program be easier and more flexible, so the platform is updating to address those concerns. They will also improve the ad running experience. For the viewers who like to watch ad-free, they will be working on launching Twitch Turbo, which offers ad-free viewing and chat upgrades to emotes and badges. The company will also work hard to improve how and where ads appear on Twitch.

Prioritizing community

In 2023, Twitch is prioritizing community by helping facilitate deeper community interaction and innovative viewer recognition. The platform is creating tools to help creators engage with their viewers better. There will be more interactive and personalized ways of celebrating moments of support from creators’ communities. One of those ways will be Viewer Milestones — where viewers will be recognized for hitting certain achievements during a stream, creating more personalized relationships between the streamer and the viewer.

Are you on Twitch? What do you think of the changes coming to the platform? Leave a comment below!