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'Twitch' Revolutionizes Entertainment Industry Jake illka // artwork by walker winkler

The ways in which the video game streaming platform has changed live streaming and entertainment as a whole.

The Twitch homepage shows off a variety of streams, making it easy for viewers to explore and find streamers they enjoy.“It is much cheaper and easier for someone to start a channel, but streams tend to be lower in things like video quality due to a lack of large amounts of spending money,”senior Nolan Scofield said. “Sponsors can definitely help increase a streamer’s quality of content because it gives them more money to work with.”

Twitch now stands out as one of the internet's premier video services after a year of massive growth. Twitch has one of the most significant and most diverse communities on the internet, giving a spotlight to a new swarm of creators and older and more popular creators. Now, Twitch is starting to make waves around the entertainment industry as a whole.

So, what is Twitch exactly? It is a live streaming service, which has a heavy emphasis on streaming video game content. Moments occur live, and streamers take full advantage of that. Streamers are a key component to Twitch, as their personalities may shine in streams and help engage audiences. As senior Jack Morgret pointed out, another key aspect is the chat function.

“There is a direct input for those who are viewing,” Morgret said. “The streamer needs to look at the chat and interact with them, which is absent in traditional television.”

There is also the appeal of anyone being able to start their own channel, which is the same thing that caused YouTube to blow up in the early 2010s. Twitch also allows for a larger audience by encouraging more people to stream. In data collected by StreamElements, Twitch had 17 billion hours of watch time throughout 2020. With that amount of views comes the potential for monetization, as advertisements shown at varying intervals during streams and sponsorships from companies help streamers earn money. This massive amount of viewers helps feed into the allure of streaming, as senior Nolan Scofield described.

“It is much cheaper and easier for someone to start a channel, but streams tend to be lower in things like video quality due to a lack of large amounts of spending money,” Scofield said. “Sponsors can definitely help increase a streamer’s quality of content because it gives them more money to work with.”

What exactly makes Twitch revolutionary? Their creators are starting to branch out from the traditional experience. With the username AustinShow, one streamer took the concept of a dating show and made it compatible with internet tastes. The show gained lots of popularity by using popular streamers as contestants and solidifying non-video game content's potential to succeed on Twitch. Although this stream may work, Morgret believes it will not cause traditional television migration.

“Honestly, I doubt that television-esque content will proliferate on Twitch, as the live aspect is what makes Twitch, Twitch,” Morgret said. “There is definitely money that can be earned from streams, but it is likely not as great as that seen from commercial television.”

With the massive growth from 2020, Twitch’s future looks bright. Even after a recent rule change following the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, otherwise known as DMCA laws, viewers are still tuning in to watch their favorite creators. As Twitch continues to grow in the future, the ripple effect of its popularity on entertainment as a whole may become much clearer.

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