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Twitch has been integral to esports’ growth and is considered one of today’s largest streaming platforms. Our Twitch news coverage keeps you up to date with all of the latest happenings on the streaming platform.
Whether it’s the latest updates being made to the platform’s ever-evolving rules, or the juiciest news about livestreaming’s top content creators and all of the drama surrounding them, we have you covered when it comes to all things Twitch.
Twitch has become one of the biggest names in all of gaming and digital culture. The livestreaming platform is synonymous with streaming video, particularly in the realm of gaming. But there’s now much more to it than that, even as Twitch continues to dominate streaming in the gaming space.
Twitch does promote a variety of categories, including some outside of Twitch. The company has for years been invested in trying to expand its reach beyond its core gaming audience.
The two most notable categories in this regard are likely IRL and Just Chatting. The IRL category, an acronym short for “in real life,” is intended for outdoor adventures of all types. This ranges from camping trips in the woods, to late-night ventures into crowded and bustling downtown areas. It’s also one of the most unpredictable categories on Twitch, with streamers encountering all manner of strangers with little idea how those interactions might go.
Sometimes, streamers even encounter fans in the wild. Some streamers go to great lengths to hide their locations in order to prevent the more awkward of these interactions from coming to fruition.
Just Chatting streams are also easily explained by their name. These streams see streamers rooted in their usual streaming spots at home and at their desk, but rather than playing a video game as is the norm on Twitch, the streamer will just talk and entertain their audience. That sometimes means talking to the active chatters watching the streamer, while other times it means talking to other streamers.
The Just Chatting category has become one of the biggest on all of Twitch, and it has led to the development of a type of celebrity culture on the streaming platform. Some of the most popular personalities on Twitch now have little to do with gaming, instead focusing on chatting up their audience and producing a broader variety of entertainment.That’s likely just what Twitch intended. By expanding possibilities for streamers well beyond gaming, it creates that much more viewing potential for the platform.
There are other categories outside of the world of video games. The “Sports” category sees live competition brought to Twitch, sometimes involving large-scale traditional sports. “Animals, Aquariums, and Zoos” sees streamers interacting with wildlife, whether in controlled environments or out and about in the rugged wild.
There’s also the “Pools, Hot Tubs, & Beaches” category, which might be the most infamous on Twitch even as it remains fairly popular. This category was borne out of streamers putting on increasingly risque displays while Twitch battled to restrict them.
Eventually, a sort of middle ground was arrived at: Streamers would be allowed to dress in skimpy attire such as swimsuits, but only if they were in an appropriate place for such styles of dress. Streamers then came right back, skirting around the issue by filling miniature blow-up pools inside their homes so that they would technically be within Twitch’s restrictions.
There are also streams in this category that actually take place in hot tubs or at the beach, but most are more similar to Just Chatting streams.
Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies, is the current owner of Twitch. The online shopping giant paid around one billion dollars to acquire Twitch, investing in the future potential of livestreaming.
Audience numbers on Twitch may already have justified that investment, though Twitch leadership has been fairly open with struggles to meet revenue targets. That isn’t a unique problem to Twitch; many companies are working to understand how best to monetize their mass digital audiences.
Twitch has also undergone multiple company restructurings during that time, as the business tries to better align itself with its financial and audience realities.
Amazon has directly integrated with Twitch in some ways. The most notable may be the ability for Amazon Prime subscribers to freely subscribe to one streamer per month. Amazon is always looking to better diversify the offerings behind Amazon Prime, and free Twitch channel subscriptions is just another example of that.
Does Twitch feature esports competitions?
Esports competitions and tournaments have long been of great importance to Twitch. These competitions provide reliable, and often exclusive, content for Twitch.
Nearly all of the world’s biggest competitive video games, ranging from League of Legends to Counter-Strike, are present on Twitch. So too are the biggest events in all of esports, from the League of Legends World Championship to Dota 2’s The International.
Twitch has attempted to invest into esports in the past. The streaming platform famously paid a high price for the rights to broadcast Activision-Blizzard’s Overwatch League, though that deal didn’t last for long. Despite the disappointment that was its OWL deal, Twitch continues to support top esports competitions across a variety of games big and small.
Vtubers have quickly grown into one of the most popular categories of streamers. The term “vtuber” is short for “virtual YouTuber,” though the reach of these streamers has long since grown well beyond the expanse of YouTube, and many vtubers now broadcast their streams live on Twitch.
Vtubers are streamers who use digital avatars to represent themselves on-screen, rather than showing their real selves as most streamers do. These avatars are often created in the style of anime characters, though this is not exclusively the case.
In order to capture their facial expressions, mouth movements, and posture, most vtubers use motion-capture technology. This allows the streamer to make their digital avatar even more lifelike and representative of their true selves.
Vtubers have accounted for some of the biggest streams on Twitch and elsewhere. Content creators such as ironmouse have set records in streaming, and as livestreaming continues to grow and coalesce, it’s very possible that the reach and influence of vtubers will only continue to grow into the future.
When these vtubers are combined with efforts made by traditional gaming streamers, IRL streamers, broadcasters showcasing tabletop games and traditional sports, and major esports broadcasts, it’s not hard to see how and why Twitch has become one of the biggest names on the whole of the modern web.
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