Twitch has announced a slew of tools with the intent of allowing the non-partnered channels on the platform to generate money. The company has launched a brand new affiliate program that will expand the horizons of just how you can generate money through the platform.
Annoucning the program, the company said:
We’re committed to being the leading platform in the world for content creators to make a living from their passions. To date, that commitment has extended only to streamers accepted into the Twitch Partner Program. But for every streamer that achieves partnership, there are thousands more striving toward that goal, many of them sharing amazing content with strong, passionate communities, but without access to on-platform tools that would allow their viewers to help support them. To those emerging streamers: we see your consistent work, and we think you deserve a leg up!
The company has introduced a brand new Affiliate Program, which will allow tens of thousands of non-partnered creators to start generating revenue from Twitch. Towards the same, the company is opening “Cheering with Bits” — which is a way for partners to receiev money from watchers on their channel — to thousands of affiliates as well. Their communities will now have an on-platform choice for showing real, tangible support.
in case you haven’t stumbled across bits yet, they are actually equal to one cent each and now onwards, both Partners and Affiliates will earn the same when those Bits are used in chat. As for how they are used: Say I purchase 10,000 bits for $100. I can then use them to tip my favorite channels or streams or videos via chat.
Affiliates will eventually also receive access to basic versions of various Twitch tools including Subscriptions, Game Commerce and Advertising. The company said that it will alsol continue developing additional features just for Partners with the aim of letting them manage and derive profits fro the substantially larger communities that follow them.
For example, when we launch Subscriptions for Affiliates in the future, Affiliates will have only 1 subscriber emote, whereas Partners will be able to unlock a full set of 50 subscriber emotes.
A whole lot of Twitch streamers will stand to benefit from these changes. Out of the over 2.2 million streamers currently available on the platform, around 17,000 are partners. However, the company believes that a large portion of these streamers will be able to receive benefit thanks to a very low bar that has been set.
The company refsed to elaborate on exatly what the requirements for joining the affiliate program were, but they aren’t going to be very difficult — and a large number of the aforementioned 2.2 million are going to stand to benefit from the changes.
