Twitch Is Developing Talk Shows and Dating Programs for Gamers

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-07/twitch-is-developing-talk-shows-and-dating-programs-for-gamers

by haneefmubarak • 6 years ago

66 76 6 years ago

wyck• 6 years ago

Dating? So they learned nothing about the dismal effects of reality TV's on culture and content creators? Here's a better suggestion, fire the person who thought moving laterally into a garbage dump was a good idea.

cat199• 6 years ago

So they learned nothing about the dismal effects of reality TV's on culture and content creators?

no, in the hetero case at least, they probably learned alot from being able to monetize a ridiculous desparate-M:attractive-F ratio from things like tinder

paulcole• 6 years ago

I knew Chuck Woolery was responsible for society’s ills.

istorical• 6 years ago

At this point Twitch is starting to become part of Big Content, and Big Content doesn't care about what you think is good for society, Big Content cares about what gets clicks and views.

Twitch already has emerging dating shows and panel / discussion shows, political debates, and even pseudo live-therapy. These shows aren't created top down by Twitch, they are simply programs users are creating.

These things are drawing growing numbers of viewers and so Twitch is wisely funding them.

Twitch itself was an off-spring created when Justin.TV noticed the popularity of video game streams on their platform so they spun out Twitch. Today Twitch is the entirety.

It wouldn't be incredibly surprising if something similar happened to Twitch as happened to Justin.TV, who knows.

I think it shows incredible foresight that they are able to ride these waves rather than fight them.

wlesieutre• 6 years ago

The takeaway they've gotten from reality TV is that it made a lot of money

stale2002• 6 years ago

This may surprise the normies, but dating stuff on twitch already exists and is extraordinarily popular, for very low production costs.

TV dating shows and reality TV involve many dozens of writers, camera/production people, ect, ect, ect

But this online psuedo-reality show content just involves a host and ~10 contestants in a zoom call. And these shows get a LOT of viewers for the cost. its 20k and above concurrent viewers.

So, with this kind of content, you have a very good cost to viewership ratio.

cyberowl3• 6 years ago

Why is it garbage? It's just entertainment. Same way reading random crap on HN is entertainment :)

ekianjo• 6 years ago

Same way reading random crap on HN is entertainment :)

At least the random crap on HN is intellectually stimulating.

kabacha6• 6 years ago

It's really unfair to clump all of entertainment together. Is watching reality TV same as discussing tech medium? Even if you boil "entertainment" down to "gives you fun points" one clearly gives you something more than that.

aspenmayer5• 6 years ago

Agreed. People think it is important to them. It may even impart information they can use to better themselves, not that it necessarily must. It’s entertainment primarily by virtue of usage if not of intent, as in the case of HN.

slightwinder6• 6 years ago

Have you seen the rest of Twitchs content? Most of it already is entertaining "garbage". It's just low-quality self-made-content, which is ok, because for high quality-cotent we have netflix and similar services. Low-quality content has it's place, and twitch is simply accepting this.

tree32• 6 years ago

Your comment reeks of a sour ego. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is below you.

w-ll• 6 years ago

Twitch could probably just be read as Amazon for this article.

I think it's a bad idea, but also thats pretty much only what MTV (Music TeleVision) has been doing for the last 2 decades and the people that watch just keep eating it up.

15 million merits

Jaygles• 6 years ago

Twitch has been experiencing some feature bloat. The guy who thought of gifting subs should be made a millionaire. The guy who came up with channel points should find other work. The former increases value for both the streamer and Twitch, the latter is a simple distraction taking attention away from the stream content and only serves to increase page interactions.

I'm worried they're introducing changes to improve certain metrics and not caring that the changes are basically gaming the metrics.

__s• 6 years ago

uBlock rules:

||supervisor.ext-twitch.tv/supervisor/v1/index.html$subdocument

www.twitch.tv##.tw-full-height.tw-flex.tw-align-items-center.community-points-summary

TypeCaste• 6 years ago

I also didn't like constantly interacting with channel points, so I made a Firefox extension to do it for me. If you're interested, I could add a setting to hide channel points page updates while still claiming the periodic bonuses.

Extension here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/points-clicke...

Semaphor• 6 years ago

I’m watching KattsKitchen [0], a cooking streamer. She has one of the very few channel-points interactions I actually like: You can make her partner do push-ups, have either of them wear a bikini apron for 15 minutes, ask their Google Home a question or have them do a Nerf shootout.

[0] https://www.twitch.tv/kattskitchen Warning: foul language and metal

thorum• 6 years ago

For some context, there are already dozens of Twitch talk shows, dating shows, Bachelor imitations etc. that are extremely popular on the platform - hosted by individual streamers, not the company itself.

For example “The Rajjchelor” (hosted by a popular streamer called Rajj) had 71,000 concurrent viewers during its most recent episode.

So this is Twitch looking at what is popular on their platform and thinking about how they can create that content themselves.

0x8BADF00D• 6 years ago

It’s nothing new. The average American is so broke that they need some kind of reality show to live vicariously through.

kabacha6• 6 years ago

Everytime I read "for gamers" I can't help but throw up a bit in my mouth.

What's up with this obscure tribalism? I'm having trouble coming up with any other mass-hobby that has such a sour tribalistic identity.

I love video-games and board games but defining yourself by type of mass entertainment you consume is just so dystopian to me.

dating for TV watchers

t-writescode• 6 years ago

Are people that play video games defining themselves? Or are other people defining the gamers and they've taken the title for themselves?

kabacha6• 6 years ago

I think there's a good mix of both.

There's definitely a marketing push from tech manifacturers-and-like with messages such as "you need to use this gamer mouse if you're a real gamer" but there's also a lot of tribalistic self-segregation. Especially in discussion communities.

It's very apparent when you browse various gaming communities on reddit, for example my favorite anecode woul be r/gaymers - it's gay people who play video-games — the correlation here is a real headscratcher.

It's much more extreme on platforms like Discord, I've been kicked out from few discord communities because I was a casual gamer and didn't identify myself hard enough with "the brand": "why are you even here if you don't dedicate yourself to gaming 24/7"

I don't mean to generalize and gaming communities on average are friendly, fun and enjoyable but the extremes are definitely very vocal and sometimes seem to be steering the medium too much.

jamesrcole2• 6 years ago

I don’t like identifying myself with labels like that. It feels too prescriptive and restricting. I’d prefer to describe what I believe and what I do.

That said, I feel that this usage of “for gamers” is pretty innocuous. I take it to be a shorthand for “this is for people who are really into games”.

kabacha6• 6 years ago

Maybe it is an issue of linguistics. I've noticed then whenever you have 1 word-defintion for an activity people ten d to be much more tribal: foodies, gamers, hiphopheads are all communities that are often infamous for taking themselves way too seriously.

monkeywork4• 6 years ago

I dunno your comment feels like someone being overly dramatic to try and win internet points.

Would you have this same reaction if someone said they were creating a social network for programmers? Music Lovers? Runners? Cooks?

Saying that you are creating something that is targeted to a group of people is perfectly fine... complaining that people identify as that group of people seems silly.

dx87• 6 years ago

I don't know about OP, but I'd feel the same way about any of those. It's assuming that everything about your personality fits into some stereotype. It's one thing to create a social network to find other people to play games with, it's another to assume that if you play games, then you must have a specific personality/lifestyle that is appealing to other people who also happen to play games. It's just a hobby, your identity doesn't have to revolve around being a "gamer".

zabana• 6 years ago

What if I'm an audiophile programmer who has won multiple marathons and likes to cook as a hobby ? What then ? Interests and identities are fluid that's why trapping people in boxes never works in long term

arvinsim• 6 years ago

I agree with you. But I think Twitch's angle here is that most hardcore gamers are usually the types to stay at home. They see a market to connect people that usually are not lent to social interaction.

leakybit• 6 years ago

no other hobby is as oppressing as being a gamer.

teruakohatu• 6 years ago

That level of hyperbole is insane. I get far, far more grief about being interested in rocks and geology than I do gaming.

Gaming is mainstream. A huge multi billion dollar industry caters to gamers every need and desire.

aspenmayer5• 6 years ago

Being a gamer while female?

ducks

[Disclaimer’: not female, pro gamers of any or no gender]

‘ yes this joke has a disclaimer. no, this isn’t part of the disclaimer, but part of the joke

madhadron• 6 years ago

I feel like being part of the KKK counts as a more oppressing hobby. Or did you mean oppressed? In which case, how did you arrive at that idea?

monkeywork4• 6 years ago

The hobby is oppressing you or whatever subset of people you are inserting yourself into is oppressing you.

I don't see how simply being a fan of games, playing them, collecting them, or creating them can be oppressive on it's own.

Hobby =/= Community

AmericanChopper• 6 years ago

Another word for what you’re describing is simply a subculture. Which for gaming in particular, is a completely optional part of the experience.

carrozo• 6 years ago

This idea — that who you are abides somehow outside of what you do — is the defining fantasy of our culture, and it appeals particularly to children. The world of the middle-schooler is a world of types. My son talks incessantly about VSCO girls and Karens and other categories of people he has learned about from YouTube. He described a classmate as “the kind of person who borrows your pencil and doesn’t give it back,” i.e. she borrowed his pencil and didn’t give it back. For a while he tried to propagate a type of his own invention, “the Suzan,” whose behavior was ill-defined but tracked closely with that of my mother of the same name. It did not catch on, and eventually he concluded that he was not the kind of person who could come up with memes.

https://theoutline.com/post/8627/raising-a-teen-personality-...

tree32• 6 years ago

You are currently on Hacker News, which is designed to appeal to a certain demographic that includes you.

throw149102• 6 years ago

I've been thinking about this recently, and personally, I find some weird sense of empowerment in identifying as a gamer. All my life I've been thinking of gaming as some sort of defective personality trait, like overeating in reaction to stress or being lazy. And as far as gaming has made it in the public sphere, I still don't think it's really respected as a hobby. If anything, it's much worse than it used to be, because now people will also assume that you're a racist/sexist/xenophobe.

I imagine there's a similar parallel in being a "hacker". When a hacker is a kid, they're rebellious because they're intelligent and bored in their schoolwork[1]. And they like to take things apart and figure out how they work, and they're not totally understood by the rest of society that just wants them to settle down and conform to a set of social rules. I imagine that that kid would find the identity as a hacker to be empowering. And I think that is empowering because it's finally saying to this kid that his behavior is actually useful and good for the world, if he can harness it in the right way.

One final small point: I don't think that people necessarily always "consume" video games. Building games, like Minecraft/Factorio/Terraria/Starbound/Oxygen_Not_Included/Satisfactory/Stardew_Valley don't seem particularly consumptive to me. I struggle to identify competitive games as consumptive either. If I play a game of soccer with friends, I don't say that I'm "consuming" the game of soccer. So why shouldn't the same apply to Fortnite? Then there are single player games that don't fit the builder profile. But a lot of single player games aren't necessarily consumptive either. Recently I've been playing Dark Souls 1, and while some of my experience in that game could be called consumptive, I don't think all of it does. A lot of that game is figuring out how it works, building a strategy to combat a boss, and what I'm doing there is not exactly consumptive.

[1] Just like gamers: https://youtu.be/fJOm1zXvVcs?t=277

dbcooper• 6 years ago

Just watch Stavros Halkias' advice show.

https://www.twitch.tv/stavvybaby

gorgoiler2• 6 years ago

no escape rooms

A shame! I am now wondering if Crystal Maze reruns are available on More4.

Merem5• 6 years ago

Now, if only they could spin off all the gaming content...maybe create a separate website for that. How about Justin.tv? That sounds nice, doesn't it?

I've been using the website for over ten years now and it's somewhat sad to see how it has actually deteriorated over time (from the perspective of how it used to be). Having been part of the community that made Justin.tv win against its competition, it feels like they built on our backs, only to slowly abandon us over time. The initial honoring by spinning off Twitch.tv for games exclusively has long worn off, as it was supplanted by non-gaming categories who continue to grow as they happily copy from other streaming websites (Afreeca first and foremost).

I really wish there were proper alternatives in the West but network effect is a thing and somehow, their websites are even worse than Twitch.tv (Mixer doesn't work at all at the time of writing this).

aspenmayer5• 6 years ago

Is the site worse for gamers now than it was before, in your opinion? Or is there just more of other kinds of content and the issues that can cause. YouTube for example seems an even stranger and worse site compared to Twitch in this context for gamers. However, I haven’t used it much other than to catch some 2d fighting game tournaments, but I had a link to that so I didn’t have to search or browse much. The little I have seemed serviceable, but I am not an expert familiar with its pain points and limitations.

Funny you mention Justin.tv. I used to livestream on there with a potable rig I made with an Asus Eee Pc before it was cool. If it was ever cool, it wasn’t on my stream. But I digress. Even back then, people were using it for game streaming and it felt somehow off in the way I think you mean, so thanks for that insight.

Merem5• 6 years ago

It's tough to say, honestly, and it depends on how you define "gamers". The initial batch was all about gaming, usually centered mainly around a community (initially a single game (since there weren't many streamers around) but later also broader categories like speedrunning and competitive gaming). That actually held on for some years. But as the audience grew and grew, they opened the gate for alternative content like "IRL" which really created an opening for people wanting to serve (or exploit if you will) gamers and their needs (they used to have a policy in place where only actual gaming streams were allowed and you could report non-gaming ones). That had already been the case previously where camgirls/former pornstars streamed themselves "playing" a game, fishing for donations and the like. However, they never really fought that and in the end, just embraced it since it meant more money for them (via subs, later also bits as well as more traffic in general). That's not a wrong decision as a company, but it left enough people with a bitter taste in their mouth.

One of the main issues is that you basically have no filters. You can't exclude entire categories, you can't exclude individual streams. They have no proper tag system and they got rid of communities. All of that makes it more difficult to find new streams that might be interesting to you specifically. Then there is also the issue with performance. Twitch.tv isn't doing well in my browser and while I do have an "older" PC, other streaming websites don't have that issue. That and the fact that Twitch.tv is overloaded with pointless things I have no interst in ("new prime loot", despite having no such account, channel points which was mentioned elsewhere already, lots of notifications in the chatbox about who donated most, gifted most etc etc) basically forced me to watch Twitch.tv and chat with others (connecting to Twitch server via IRC client) outside of the website. It does work really well for channels you know you like but you will basically never discover new ones without going to the website.

Youtube is worse in general and I feel part of the issue is that they tried to bake the livestreams into Youtube proper. While it's not wrong to leverage existing platforms, it certainly wasn't good the way they did it. Also, due to the network effect as well as streamers being tied to one platform, competition isn't much of a thing anymore. As far as I can see it, the competition is long over and Twitch.tv won. The only real challengers were in the Justin.tv days when websites like Livestream and Ustream were actually larger and in the early Twitch era when own3d was still able to compete...until they ran out of money. As for livestreaming platforms for people who are into gaming only? It's possible that one such thing can become relevant even with Twitch.tv around but for that to happen, Twitch.tv would have to be enormous...and even then, they would still offer a larger potential audience. Still, if that happens, the emerging platform might have more of the "pure" gamers around who stream for fun, rather than for money (one of the larger issues I have nowadays - lots of people streaming to make money, having overlays practically begging for it).

It depends on what year you are talking about. I still fondly remember the times when Justin.tv was full of illegal cough restreams of the Simpsons, Futurama etc. I even paid for a "pro account" to get preferred treatment when it came to data transfers aka I paid, so that the streams wouldn't lag (and yes, that was a thing back then).

corobo• 6 years ago

"honoring" is a bit much. At the time the IRL content wasn't doing well so they looked at what was, it was gaming.

They're doing the exact same thing now. Surviving.

For the sake of it "How about Justin.tv? That sounds nice, doesn't it?" No, that's actually a terrible name for a livestreaming site.

Merem5• 6 years ago

Huh? They are growing, not surving. It was the same thing back in the day. When we migrated from Ustream.tv to Justin.tv in 2010, gaming became their largest section and continued to grow ever since. So it made sense to spin it off, as the non-gaming content was mostly regarded as clutter and the illegal streams of Simpsons and the like that I mentioned in another comment were issues too.

Not sure why you address that line as the name is obviously not good and the "sounds nice" doesn't refer to any name.

hvasilev• 6 years ago

Twitch stopped being a gaming streaming website and is technically "Amazon's streaming platform". They want to branch out of gaming (which is their core audience) into general streaming market dominance, but it seems to be very difficult. So they basically started promoting non-gaming streams, which are related to gaming. It was a good plan, but turns out that it didn't work the way that they expected to, since gamers are quite unpredictable. For a while the viewership of twitch is stagnant, and slightly declining. There are many additional reasons for this, but in my humble opinion they should kept the streaming platform niche and focus on promoting gaming content, instead of trying to branch out of it into general streaming.

slightwinder6• 6 years ago

Twitch stopped being a gaming streaming website

Don't you mean gaming-only? Because the majority of content (>90% probably) is still gaming.

mirimir2• 6 years ago

Honest question: Is "gamer" a very useful category?

I never enjoyed board games, and I grew up before electronic games existed, so I'm clearly not one. I have relatives who are, however. And they play games that are so different that it seems irrelevant to getting who they are.

In other words, doesn't it matter more what sorts of games people like?

Mindwipe• 6 years ago

I expect "gamer" here is used as shorthand for "Twitch's existing audience."

ausbah• 6 years ago

as someone in this thread mentioned, being a "gamer" has a very strong group identity despite varying wildly across different genres and platforms

however despite the label being so shallow that literally anyone who touches a game every now and then can adopt the label, there still exist gamer "subgroups" who hold vitriolic ideas on what a "real gamer" is. I believe this exclusionary version of the label normally takes the form of men ages 15-35 lashing out at any game that veers too far from what is "acceptable" on race, gender, sex, etc. deeming them to be the byproduct of "SJWs who want to ruin our games"

mirimir2• 6 years ago

That's what I was thinking, more or less. And I just found this survey: https://www.polygon.com/2017/1/20/14337282/games-for-women-a...

I'm guessing that "real gamers" play games that are most popular among male players.

But maybe "gamer" is simply shorthand for "people who play games".

Edit: So am I a "gamer", because I pose online as various fictional personas? Or because, in meatspace, I pose as an unremarkable person?

greendestiny_re• 6 years ago

I started watching Twitch in 2014 for a highly specific purpose: watch video games played with skill and possibly interact with/support skilled gamers.

I stopped watching Twitch in 2018, when it became apparent that Twitch has less to do with video games and more with watching the streamer react to what's happening while feigning to interact with the viewers. When I watch Twitch today, I feel like I'm the one being gamed.

I loathe forced interactions, the incessant notifications, popups and added Twitch UI that clutters the screen, even when I maximize the video, making it feel like I'm watching the game through a pinhole. I hate the streamer's constant "thank you for the <X> months sub, <username>" that disrupts any gameplay immersion. In the chat, streamer's bots dominate with their !<command> walls of text while I can't type in anything because I can get banned for certain faces or just can't post at all unless I follow or subscribe (pay money).

Besides, it became increasingly more difficult to find skilled gamers because everyone started trend surfing. If SodaPoppin plays an indie game, all of a sudden everyone is playing it to leech off of the fact he can push any category to #1 in the Most Watched group. This leads to tons and tons of crud and brainless filler as streamers play low-value games designed to elicit shock reactions.

Why would a skilled guy play an obscure game for his 25 viewers when he can trend surf and grab hundreds of new followers, subscribers and viewers just by playing whatever SodaPoppin is playing? Twitch pouring money into dating content means a perverse incentive to trend surf to the max, game the audience and produce contrived drama.

Here's a great example of typical Twitch content, minus the notifications, from CohhCarnage: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/614909188?t=00h13m48s

Nothing of substance happens in that ~1h video as he plays Fallout 76, he just walks from one merchant to the next, buys stuff, plants veggies, kills 1-2 enemies, reads some text logs and the video ends. It's total filler, with no insightful commentary, no skill portrayed and nothing worth watching. The guy has over 1.2 million followers for no discernible reason. That's Twitch, rewarding the producers of filler.

The closest replacement I found was CarcinogenSDA Youtube channel that does old video game speedruns, most often in the "no damage taken" category. It's fascinating and comes in two versions: with or without the player's commentary. That's what I want—turn on a video game speedrun lasting 3-4 hours with no interruptions or the player's contorted face and just enjoy the show. If I want to know how he figured out a certain trick, I can watch the version with the commentary and that's that. No forced interactions, for the love of God.

The last fun thing I watched on Twitch were the Power Rangers and YuGiOh marathons in 2018, and even then only because of the 24/7 chat that made them fun.

Twitch Is Developing Talk Shows and Dating Programs for Gamers

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