Twitch in 2020, an Amazon Owned Live Streaming Video Gaming Platform

Twitch is an Amazon owned company bought in 2014 for an eye-watering $970 million. The company is a live online streaming video gaming platform originally created for gamers. The gaming industy has grown from decade to decade. Sign up to Twitch is online or via an Amazon Prime subscription which gives access to Prime Gaming on Twitch. Twitch Prime is a source of free in-game content, PC games and a Twitch channel subscription every month which has been open to Amazon's 150million+ Prime subscribers.

Historically, people have always watched others play video games, whether this be at the arcades, on television or on the computer. Twitch has successfully brought the pastime to the 21st century by allowing gamers to live stream to anyone watching them. They have become content creators where viewers can interact with the streamers and help direct them to content. Some players can play with broadcasters, the platform has grown into a community that is thriving. There are several categories that allow people around the world to produce content. Twitch content creators can fund their channel in several ways. Find out more here

1. Tips and Donations - most live-streaming platforms and websites allow you to make money streaming by letting viewers send you donations or tips. They usually have integrated services, or even their own “virtual goods” or “currencies” viewers can use for the transaction.  Twitch allows viewers to “cheer” using Bits, the platform’s virtual good. If you’re a Twitch affiliate or a partner, you get around a cent for every Bit viewers use when cheering. The viewers get to write a message that appears together with a special kind of emote, a Cheemote

2. Regular viewer payments on the streaming platform, Twitch has a paid subscription program that lets you earn from paid subscriptions if you’re an Affiliate or Partner. Your viewers get one subscription for free through Twitch Prime, or they can pay for them using PayPal, Amazon Pay, or credit cards.

3. Tips and regular payments via third-party platforms - this allows donations and subscriptions.  Popular options include: Streamlabs for one-time donations. It integrates easily with Twitch, YouTube, Mixer, Facebook, Periscope, and Picarto, and it offers six different payment options.

4. Revenue from adverts - Twitch offers in-stream ads, as well as display and native ad opportunities. In comparison, YouTube offers pre-roll and mid-roll ads, as well as display and overlay ads. Facebook Live offers mid-roll ads if you meet the viewership number criteria.

5. Brand deals and Sponsorship - watch this video below. Brands can work with a Twitch content creator or influencer as follows:  A. Sponsorships, the whole stream is sponsored by a brand. B. Banners and other types of advertisements these are displayed during the streams or on the channel or profile page on the platform. C. Sponsored content, for example, a game developer pays for the influencer to play their game.

6. Affiliate sales - influencers can become members of affiliate programmes. A simple code or link can be placed in the stream. This allows the influencer to make a commission everytime a shopper clicks on the link.

7. Pay Per View Content - Influencers can createFirst, you need to be able to create content people will want to pay to watch. That usually means some level of exclusivity or at least something that will make it different from anything that’s already available for free. You need a platform that lets you sell tickets to streams, or a service like StreamTick that lets you do it on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. With that, you have everything you need to put your content behind a paywall.

For Advertisers considering Twitch, below are the Key Twitch Statistics Even More Twitch User Statistics Here

• 3.8 million unique broadcasters over February 2020
• Average monthly Twitch broadcasters 3.64 million over 2019
• 56,000 concurrent Twitch broadcasters on average, as of March 2020
• 1.44 million concurrent viewers on average, as of March 2020
• 41,100 Twitch Partners, as of March 2020
• Highest peak concurrent Twitch views in 2020 (as of March) 533,000, for The Gregf
• Tfue most followed active Twitch account, with 7.8 million
• Ninja had 14.7 million followers before defecting to Microsoft Mixer
• League of Legends all-time most-viewed game on Twitch, with 29 billion views (as of April 2020)
• Twitch claimed 65% share of hours viewed (3.1 billion), and 72% hours (121.4 million) streamed against game streaming rivals in Q1 2020
• 2.3 billion hours watched on Twitch in Q4 2019 (compared to 0.9 billion on YouTube Gaming and 0.1 million on Mixer)
• As of 2017, 124 million clips were stored on Twitch, with 1.7 billion views collectively
• Twitch users watch 95 minutes per day on average
• Twitch acquired by Amazon for $1 billion in August 2014
• Twitch ranked 33 in the world in Alexa’s web ranking in April 2020
• 65% of the Twitch userbase is male
• Around 23% of Twitch desktop traffic comes from the US
• Record for single channel concurrent Twitch views 1.1 million for a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament hosted by ELEAGUE in January 2018
• Overall record for concurrent Twitch views 1.7 million for League of Legends Worlds hosted by Riot Games in November 2019
• Ninja holds the non-tournament record for single channel concurrent viewers on Twitch, at 635,000 (playing Fortnite alongside Drake, Travis Scott, and Juju Smith-Schuster)
• Twitch 2019 revenue estimated at $1.54 billion, $300 million of which was generated through advertising

Research sources : https://restream.io/blog/ways-you-can-make-money-live-streaming/

https://www.ironsrc.com/blog/mobile-gaming-industry-trends-in-2020/

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitch-statistics/#:~:text=generated%20through%20advertising-,Twitch%20User%20Statistics,monthly%20users%20at%20140%20million.