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Twitch will now let streamers simultaneously stream on any service they want

196 points by my12parsecs 3y ago

crop_rotation 3y ago
This is actually a big change and a very good thing. The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. I have watched all twitch and youtube simulcasts always on Youtube.
- nubinetwork 3y ago
  > I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this They stop losing streamers to other platforms because of the previous twitch-only stipulation.
  - crop_rotation 3y ago
    But they will lose them anyways, once streamers are able to simulcast and viewers slowly shift. This is either an admission of defeat or supreme confidence that viewers would prefer Twitch over other platforms as long as streamer is available on Twitch.
    - foota 3y ago
      Losing viewers is probably better than losing steamers, without steamers twitch is nothing.
      - scary-size 3y ago
        That applies the other way around too. That’s called a network effect.
        foota 3y ago
        I feel like streamers are harder to get than viewers. Viewers just need to go to the site and watch a streamer, but a streamer needs to set it up to stream. They could probably get viewers back fairly easy through advertising or tie ins to games, but doing that with streamers would likely be harder.
        jowsie 3y ago
        Streaming from console or gpu driver addon trash is normally as simple as clicking a link and/or logging in to the site.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - kzrdude 3y ago
      Couldn't it also help catching more people to twitch? People find a stream on youtube -> they hear the streamer mostly interact with twitch chat -> they think twitch is the main platform (if they want that kind of interaction.)
- patmcc 3y ago
  >>>I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. It might staunch the bleeding. Instead of losing X streamers a month they lose .5X streamers who just simulcast instead of leaving. It's an admission that they're not the big dog in streaming any more.
  - AraceliHarker 3y ago
    The fact that Twitch has allowed simultaneous streaming on other platforms suggests that the platform is no longer able to offer famous streamers the financial incentives they are seeking.
    - chongli 3y ago
      I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune. Plus those big streamers love to monetize their users through other means: Patreon, Onlyfans, sponsorships, merchandise sales, and even direct PayPal donations. They tend to try to steer their users away from large donations of Twitch subscriptions due to the large cut that goes to Twitch. All this means Twitch isn’t able to capture most of the revenue for the streaming business. I don’t know what they can do to fix it. Perhaps this new non-exclusivity deal is a way of shedding some of the deadweight. If viewers of large streams spread out to other platforms then maybe a lot of the non-revenue-producing ones will move off Twitch. Smaller streams that are more subscription-based may be less likely to do so.
      - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
        I like your theory, maybe it's a play to blunt the power / reduce costs of superstar streamers, but wouldn't larger streams / more popular streamers, be more attractive to advertisers?
      - littlestymaar 3y ago
        > I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune It's the best use-case for webRTC-based delivery though. They could be saving ~90-95%[1] of their bandwidth cost on these use-cases, I find it very intriguing that they haven't adopted it after all that time. [1] actual production number when I was working on that topic.
- Bayart 3y ago
  > The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. The viewing experience, if you don't include the chat experience, is better regardless of your connection's speed. YouTube seems to have access to better distribution (you'd think Twitch being an Amazon company they'd be more or less on par), the software works better, the ad policy works better.
  - wavemode 3y ago
    I can only imagine Amazon is being stingy with Twitch's budget. If they wanted to make the stream reliability much better they absolutely could. I experience the same even with gigabit bandwidth in the central US - can't watch the Twitch version (of some event that is streaming to both) reliably even at 480p, yet the YouTube version is buttery smooth at 1080p.
    - grepfru_it 3y ago
      gigabit bandwidth is dependent on your latency. your latency is dependent on many factors from your local hardware to the routers between you and your destination. fwiw, i do not experience your claims when viewing twitch
    - simfree 3y ago
      Sounds like a peering issue where your ISP and Amazon don't have good peering between each other, yet Google has good peering with plenty of excess bandwidth to get their content (YouTube) to your ISP.
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  > I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. My best guess is that they are trying to keep more communities on Twitch at the cost of letting some viewers leave. The new rules about not combining chats or other features (sub notifications?) means you have some real network effects that will keep many viewers on twitch and keep the streamer primarily focused on Twitch because there's no low-cost migration path for their community anymore. Power users will probably use extensions that let them watch a higher quality Youtube stream with Twitch chat enabled, and if most of the community is on Twitch they may want to subscribe on Twitch as well. In the best case scenario Twitch gets all the revenue they would have gotten ($2.50/m from the sub) without any of the cost of delivering the video. Further, IF they can keep the community and the engagement on Twitch then they might have turned their simulcast weakness into a strength. If viewers organically find the stream on Youtube or Kick or whatever and enjoy it but see that all the chat and alerts are from twitch and want to participate then they might jump over. YouTube's live discoverability is awful right now so its kind of moot but it could be a thing in the future.
- DizInTheBiz 3y ago
  One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: the guidelines explicitly state that the Twitch chat experience must be >= other platforms. Many streamers use bots to interact with chat for things like raffles, giveaways, custom coin gamification... and these bots usually don't support multiple concurrent platforms. Because of this stipulation, I've already witnessed multiple streamers say "if you're watching on Youtube and would like to enter, you must go to Twitch and type !X in chat" Whether intentional or not, this is a sly way make the actual streamers 301 to Twitch.
AraceliHarker 3y ago
I implore you to leave the crass commercialization of game streaming, which is devoid of creativity, originality, or enlightenment, to the Twitch ecosystem.
- haunter 3y ago
  Forsen
  - Tiberium 3y ago
    forsen forsen I'm your number one fan
jerbear4328 3y ago
This seems like a good change for streamers and viewers, I was honestly surprised at how restrictive they were before. They still are a little, not allowing them to link to the other platforms they're streaming on, etc. Nice to see the note about Jacksfilms, it's cool that this is getting into mainstream news
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  Streamers can link to other platforms on their About page as per the twitch article.
sylware 3y ago
This is probably related to the "exclusive" thingies, which can be abused by some corpos to bleed out the competition. Some will say this is the other way around: to defend smaller corpos to be eaten away by big corpos, but usually it only lasts so much before big corpos get their way. All "exclusive" thingies are questionable anyway from an "economic competition" point of view.
isatis 3y ago
At first I was excited about hearing this, but there’s two big caveats to this: 1) Due to some odd wording in the terms of what’s permissible, your stream can’t be lower quality than what you send to other platforms. Because YouTube offers a higher ingestion bandwidth rate (10+ Mbps) than Twitch (6 Mbps), someone appealing to both services that wants to send the maximum bitrate allowed for quality purposes or even with differing resolutions can be hit due to the technicality: > otherwise degrading, the video quality on Twitch so that it’s worse than on other platforms would make the user’s experience on Twitch less than other services and, therefore, not meet these guidelines. 2) A popular tool for streamers who aren’t bound by exclusivity (anyone not Affiliate/Partner before this came out) used Restream to both stream to multiple platforms as well as integrate a combined chatroom, for example mixing YouTube and Twitch chats, will have to stop doing so. This sucks for viewer interactivity and would be a net negative to smaller streamers: > You do not use third-party services that combine activity from other platforms or services on your Twitch stream during your Simulcast, such as merging chat or other features, to ensure the Twitch community is included in the entirety of the experience of your livestream. So, this feels more like a bait and switch to generate positive PR when a lot of the conversation toward Twitch has been negative the past year, and less of an omission of no longer being the top dog of gaming streaming. Source: https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  I take the first to mean that you can't purposefully degrade the quality from what would otherwise be possible, not that you can't use higher bitrate elsewhere. The second bit simply says "third party service" - nothing stops you from doing the combined chat overlay locally and streaming the result. Also, twitch is still very much the top dog, but you're right - they're actually having to compete against youtube now.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    > The second bit simply says "third party service" The spirit of the terms seems to be they don't want combined chat, and are relying on the fact that most streamers are not going to develop their own chat combining software. If people try to get past this on a technicality, expect them to revise the conditions.
edandersen 3y ago
> your stream can’t be lower quality than what you send to other platforms Twitch just passes through the stream you provide without transcoding at the top quality level. They only transcode for resolutions lower than you are providing (and ration those transcoding services). YouTube always transcodes, even if the resolution/bitrate you are streaming is suitable for viewers, slightly lowering quality. Therefore unless you are providing a lower resolution or bitrate stream to Twitch yourself, you can never fall foul of this. YouTube will always lower the quality from what you provide. The "no-combining activity" is a direct shot at Restream.io etc which provide unified chat streams.
- MaxikCZ 3y ago
  but YouTube will ingest 10 mbit stream in contrast to twitch 6, so even after YouTube transcoding the result may still look better than direct 6 mbit relayed by twitch.
hollow-moe 3y ago
Maybe we'll begin to see streamers offering their content on better alternative platforms like PeerTube instances now ? Twitch is really a pain with their ads and bloated ui.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
qwery 3y ago
Today I learned that previously, Twitch explicitly forbade its creators to use other platforms. So this is good news -- Twitch will now no longer prevent its creators from streaming to their audience over multiple services. Provided the Simulcasting Guidelines[0] are followed, of course. Let's take a look at these guidelines then: > We believe in giving you the freedom to simultaneously stream on other services, but we also want to ensure that the Twitch user experience is not compromised. If "giving you the freedom" means "taking a small step to restore liberties that we snatched from you" then this sounds good. Accepting that you have done something wrong is always a good first step. Onto the actual guidelines (never use the 'R' word[1]) -- there's only three, phew! > You ensure that the quality of Twitch users’ experience of your [stream is] no less than the experience on other platforms or services, including by your engagement with the Twitch community, for example, via chat. Who decides which "experience" is "less than"? Compare the number of shoutouts to chat? Ignore good questions from Youtube users because nobody on Twitch is saying anything interesting? Which leads to a worse experience on Twitch. The only safe way to comply with this is, I guess, to not mention the other platform, do not interact with the users on the other platform, cripple the video quality on the other platform. > You should not provide links, or otherwise direct your community, to leave Twitch for your simulcast on other services because we value the community on Twitch and the integral role community engagement plays for all Twitch users. "Should not" -- OK, but I can some of the time, maybe just a little? Does "direct your[2] community" include saying "hey youtube"? Again, do not mention the other platform. What if during your Twitch sanctioned Twitch chat interactions, someone asks "what's the deal with you streaming on Youtube at the same time as here? (and how can I get an internet connection like what you have?)" -- I assume you can answer the question, as long as you say the word 'Twitch' at least as many times as you say 'Youtube'? It's bizarre that this one includes a rationale for itself. I don't care what your (stated) reasons are, Twitch. You have all the gems already, Twitch. You get to make the r-guidelines, Twitch. > You do not use third-party services that combine activity from other platforms or services on your Twitch stream during your Simulcast, such as merging chat or other features, to ensure the Twitch community is included in the entirety of the experience of your livestream. Uh oh, we in the "do nots" now. Again with the weird rationale thing. It just makes it even more confusing. For example, how would merging the chats exclude people? Surely merging the chats would include Twitch users in more of the experience -- you know, because they can see all of the chat. > If you fail to adhere to the Simulcast Guidelines, Twitch will send you a warning prior to taking any enforcement action. OK. So it's Youtube closing channels out of the blue because someone just felt like it, or a computer suggested it. """Dear HUMAN, You may have noticed that you have received 1 warnings on your account. This is never a nice thing to heard -- we know how it feels, friend! :3 The warning/s are pertaining to your recent breach/es of the Simulcasting Guidelines, which you can review at the link below. We regret to inform you that, you are ours, your sincerely real, Friend Humans at Twitch""" [0] https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines [0+] Bonus: simulcast is a portmanteau that is really unnatural to say (AU) [1] Rules. The 'R' word is rules. We don't like it because it assigns some responsibility and accountability to the enforcers. [2] It's funny to see them acknowledge that the audience is there for the streamer, not the platform.
yreg 3y ago
What does it mean 'Twitch will let them'? Is this some new feature in their software? Or were streamers actually forbidden to stream on several platforms at once by some contract?
- bakugo 3y ago
  Twitch partners were forbidden from doing it by their contract, yes.
- corobo 3y ago
  Aye, the rule before this change is in the terms as: > 11. Simulcasting > When you are streaming live on the Twitch Services you may not simultaneously live stream or broadcast (“Simulcast”) on any other “Twitch-like Service,” meaning any web-based network, platform, or service that supports live streaming of user generated content, without advance written permission from Twitch. For clarity, you may Simulcast on mobile-first services that support live streaming. This Section does not apply to non-profit or government entities that are live streaming for non-commercial purposes. Twitch-like being YouTube, Kick, and similars. Mobile first being Tiktok, Instagram, etc - vertical/portrait resolution https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/legal/terms-of-service/#11-simulcasting https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/legal/terms-of-service/#11-simulc... I imagine this will be changing soon so for posterity https://archive.ph/Y3Vti#11-simulcasting https://archive.ph/Y3Vti#11-simulcasting
imchillyb 3y ago
Moats, like the one Twitch is building, lead to bridge building, pole vaulting, and swimming to get around the restricted access. The lock and pick are great examples. LPL, McNally Official, and Covert Instruments are great examples of this phenomena. Mo matter the security or restrictions put in place there is a, not insignificant, portion of the population that will circumvent. The tighter the grip, the faster the slip.
bigtex 3y ago
Glad to see Twitch’s influence on the streaming world slowly fade. What they did to DrDisrespect by banning him and never stating why was dirty.
_jcrossley 3y ago
As a hyper-niche classical guitar streamer, I’m stoked for this. I previously ended my Affiliate program just to feel comfortable multi-streaming to YouTube: my target audience is so niche it feels important to reach audiences where they’re at. Hope this change helps build more niche genres!
jinseokim 3y ago
> Streamers will have to make sure the quality of their stream on Twitch is “no less than the experience on other platforms or services.” Note that Twitch limits stream quality in certain country. For example, in South Korea, content is transcoded to 720p or lower. [1] [1] https://www.thegamer.com/twitch-korea-limiting-stream-quality-to-720p/ https://www.thegamer.com/twitch-korea-limiting-stream-qualit...
- etc-hosts 3y ago
  It's probably limited because the cost of delivering video to SK through the undersea cables to Japan is quite high.
nickphx 3y ago
The race to the bottom continues.
xtat 3y ago
The grip that Twitch has on it's creators is unreal.
djbusby 3y ago
Wonder how this will work with Streamlabs (Melon) which I'd been using to stream to Twitch,YT and LI at the same time. Maybe I was a rule breaker and didn't even know.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  If I remember correctly, if you're a Twitch Partner (have a subscribe button), it has been part of your contract in the past to not stream to any other platform while you're streaming to Twitch. But I imagine there is probably not much in the ways of automated detection for it, so if you're a smaller streamer you may have just slipped through the cracks on that rule.
- rvba 3y ago
  The rules were changed that you are a rule-breaker now.
lyu07282 3y ago
The new CEO of Twitch dan clancy is actually coming across like a really nice guy, he often shows up on random streamers streams and does his own streams etc. He also was a guest for a day of IRL streaming with a streamer called extraemily for example. Recently he was posting that the twitch partner application he sent for his own stream was denied even though he meets the criteria, a long standing grievance of the community he presumably was testing for himself. My point is just that he really seems to makes an effort to understand live streaming, I'm somewhat cautiously optimistic about the future of Twitch with him on the helm.
- PurpleRamen 3y ago
  Yes, Clancy is the total opposite of the previous CEO. The former one was kinda like a myth who just appeared once a year to Twich-Con, and nobody even knew who he was then because everyone had already forgotten about him again. Clancy on the other side is so far on a constant quest to explore and live a Streams life and engage with people. Really impressive. But also generally very unusually for someone in that position to appear this active in Public.
rldjbpin 3y ago
This is probably going to help bring back some who went to Kick for some quick cash. Strongly believe that no other competitors have gotten their chat dialed down as well as on Twitch. Would be a shame if you go to Youtube to watch on better bitrate but participate on Twitch chat.

196 points by my12parsecs 3y ago

This is actually a big change and a very good thing. The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. I have watched all twitch and youtube simulcasts always on Youtube.

nubinetwork 3y ago
> I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this They stop losing streamers to other platforms because of the previous twitch-only stipulation.
- crop_rotation 3y ago
  But they will lose them anyways, once streamers are able to simulcast and viewers slowly shift. This is either an admission of defeat or supreme confidence that viewers would prefer Twitch over other platforms as long as streamer is available on Twitch.
  - foota 3y ago
    Losing viewers is probably better than losing steamers, without steamers twitch is nothing.
    - scary-size 3y ago
      That applies the other way around too. That’s called a network effect.
      - foota 3y ago
        I feel like streamers are harder to get than viewers. Viewers just need to go to the site and watch a streamer, but a streamer needs to set it up to stream. They could probably get viewers back fairly easy through advertising or tie ins to games, but doing that with streamers would likely be harder.
        jowsie 3y ago
        Streaming from console or gpu driver addon trash is normally as simple as clicking a link and/or logging in to the site.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - kzrdude 3y ago
    Couldn't it also help catching more people to twitch? People find a stream on youtube -> they hear the streamer mostly interact with twitch chat -> they think twitch is the main platform (if they want that kind of interaction.)
patmcc 3y ago
>>>I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. It might staunch the bleeding. Instead of losing X streamers a month they lose .5X streamers who just simulcast instead of leaving. It's an admission that they're not the big dog in streaming any more.
- AraceliHarker 3y ago
  The fact that Twitch has allowed simultaneous streaming on other platforms suggests that the platform is no longer able to offer famous streamers the financial incentives they are seeking.
  - chongli 3y ago
    I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune. Plus those big streamers love to monetize their users through other means: Patreon, Onlyfans, sponsorships, merchandise sales, and even direct PayPal donations. They tend to try to steer their users away from large donations of Twitch subscriptions due to the large cut that goes to Twitch. All this means Twitch isn’t able to capture most of the revenue for the streaming business. I don’t know what they can do to fix it. Perhaps this new non-exclusivity deal is a way of shedding some of the deadweight. If viewers of large streams spread out to other platforms then maybe a lot of the non-revenue-producing ones will move off Twitch. Smaller streams that are more subscription-based may be less likely to do so.
    - HlessClaudesman 3y ago
      I like your theory, maybe it's a play to blunt the power / reduce costs of superstar streamers, but wouldn't larger streams / more popular streamers, be more attractive to advertisers?
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      > I think the large streamers are a loss leader for Twitch. Delivering thousands of extremely high resolution, high frame rate, high bit rate streams costs a fortune It's the best use-case for webRTC-based delivery though. They could be saving ~90-95%[1] of their bandwidth cost on these use-cases, I find it very intriguing that they haven't adopted it after all that time. [1] actual production number when I was working on that topic.
Bayart 3y ago
> The viewing experience on YouTube is so much better if your Internet is not uber fast. The viewing experience, if you don't include the chat experience, is better regardless of your connection's speed. YouTube seems to have access to better distribution (you'd think Twitch being an Amazon company they'd be more or less on par), the software works better, the ad policy works better.
- wavemode 3y ago
  I can only imagine Amazon is being stingy with Twitch's budget. If they wanted to make the stream reliability much better they absolutely could. I experience the same even with gigabit bandwidth in the central US - can't watch the Twitch version (of some event that is streaming to both) reliably even at 480p, yet the YouTube version is buttery smooth at 1080p.
  - grepfru_it 3y ago
    gigabit bandwidth is dependent on your latency. your latency is dependent on many factors from your local hardware to the routers between you and your destination. fwiw, i do not experience your claims when viewing twitch
  - simfree 3y ago
    Sounds like a peering issue where your ISP and Amazon don't have good peering between each other, yet Google has good peering with plenty of excess bandwidth to get their content (YouTube) to your ISP.
enragedcacti 3y ago
> I am not sure how twitch intends to benefit from this. My best guess is that they are trying to keep more communities on Twitch at the cost of letting some viewers leave. The new rules about not combining chats or other features (sub notifications?) means you have some real network effects that will keep many viewers on twitch and keep the streamer primarily focused on Twitch because there's no low-cost migration path for their community anymore. Power users will probably use extensions that let them watch a higher quality Youtube stream with Twitch chat enabled, and if most of the community is on Twitch they may want to subscribe on Twitch as well. In the best case scenario Twitch gets all the revenue they would have gotten ($2.50/m from the sub) without any of the cost of delivering the video. Further, IF they can keep the community and the engagement on Twitch then they might have turned their simulcast weakness into a strength. If viewers organically find the stream on Youtube or Kick or whatever and enjoy it but see that all the chat and alerts are from twitch and want to participate then they might jump over. YouTube's live discoverability is awful right now so its kind of moot but it could be a thing in the future.
DizInTheBiz 3y ago
One thing I haven't seen mentioned yet: the guidelines explicitly state that the Twitch chat experience must be >= other platforms. Many streamers use bots to interact with chat for things like raffles, giveaways, custom coin gamification... and these bots usually don't support multiple concurrent platforms. Because of this stipulation, I've already witnessed multiple streamers say "if you're watching on Youtube and would like to enter, you must go to Twitch and type !X in chat" Whether intentional or not, this is a sly way make the actual streamers 301 to Twitch.

AraceliHarker 3y ago

I implore you to leave the crass commercialization of game streaming, which is devoid of creativity, originality, or enlightenment, to the Twitch ecosystem.

haunter 3y ago
Forsen
- Tiberium 3y ago
  forsen forsen I'm your number one fan

jerbear4328 3y ago

This seems like a good change for streamers and viewers, I was honestly surprised at how restrictive they were before. They still are a little, not allowing them to link to the other platforms they're streaming on, etc. Nice to see the note about Jacksfilms, it's cool that this is getting into mainstream news

crop_rotation 3y ago
Streamers can link to other platforms on their About page as per the twitch article.

sylware 3y ago

This is probably related to the "exclusive" thingies, which can be abused by some corpos to bleed out the competition. Some will say this is the other way around: to defend smaller corpos to be eaten away by big corpos, but usually it only lasts so much before big corpos get their way. All "exclusive" thingies are questionable anyway from an "economic competition" point of view.

isatis 3y ago

At first I was excited about hearing this, but there’s two big caveats to this: 1) Due to some odd wording in the terms of what’s permissible, your stream can’t be lower quality than what you send to other platforms. Because YouTube offers a higher ingestion bandwidth rate (10+ Mbps) than Twitch (6 Mbps), someone appealing to both services that wants to send the maximum bitrate allowed for quality purposes or even with differing resolutions can be hit due to the technicality: > otherwise degrading, the video quality on Twitch so that it’s worse than on other platforms would make the user’s experience on Twitch less than other services and, therefore, not meet these guidelines. 2) A popular tool for streamers who aren’t bound by exclusivity (anyone not Affiliate/Partner before this came out) used Restream to both stream to multiple platforms as well as integrate a combined chatroom, for example mixing YouTube and Twitch chats, will have to stop doing so. This sucks for viewer interactivity and would be a net negative to smaller streamers: > You do not use third-party services that combine activity from other platforms or services on your Twitch stream during your Simulcast, such as merging chat or other features, to ensure the Twitch community is included in the entirety of the experience of your livestream. So, this feels more like a bait and switch to generate positive PR when a lot of the conversation toward Twitch has been negative the past year, and less of an omission of no longer being the top dog of gaming streaming. Source: https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines

KennyBlanken 3y ago
I take the first to mean that you can't purposefully degrade the quality from what would otherwise be possible, not that you can't use higher bitrate elsewhere. The second bit simply says "third party service" - nothing stops you from doing the combined chat overlay locally and streaming the result. Also, twitch is still very much the top dog, but you're right - they're actually having to compete against youtube now.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  > The second bit simply says "third party service" The spirit of the terms seems to be they don't want combined chat, and are relying on the fact that most streamers are not going to develop their own chat combining software. If people try to get past this on a technicality, expect them to revise the conditions.

edandersen 3y ago

> your stream can’t be lower quality than what you send to other platforms Twitch just passes through the stream you provide without transcoding at the top quality level. They only transcode for resolutions lower than you are providing (and ration those transcoding services). YouTube always transcodes, even if the resolution/bitrate you are streaming is suitable for viewers, slightly lowering quality. Therefore unless you are providing a lower resolution or bitrate stream to Twitch yourself, you can never fall foul of this. YouTube will always lower the quality from what you provide. The "no-combining activity" is a direct shot at Restream.io etc which provide unified chat streams.

MaxikCZ 3y ago
but YouTube will ingest 10 mbit stream in contrast to twitch 6, so even after YouTube transcoding the result may still look better than direct 6 mbit relayed by twitch.

hollow-moe 3y ago

Maybe we'll begin to see streamers offering their content on better alternative platforms like PeerTube instances now ? Twitch is really a pain with their ads and bloated ui.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

qwery 3y ago

Today I learned that previously, Twitch explicitly forbade its creators to use other platforms. So this is good news -- Twitch will now no longer prevent its creators from streaming to their audience over multiple services. Provided the Simulcasting Guidelines[0] are followed, of course. Let's take a look at these guidelines then: > We believe in giving you the freedom to simultaneously stream on other services, but we also want to ensure that the Twitch user experience is not compromised. If "giving you the freedom" means "taking a small step to restore liberties that we snatched from you" then this sounds good. Accepting that you have done something wrong is always a good first step. Onto the actual guidelines (never use the 'R' word[1]) -- there's only three, phew! > You ensure that the quality of Twitch users’ experience of your [stream is] no less than the experience on other platforms or services, including by your engagement with the Twitch community, for example, via chat. Who decides which "experience" is "less than"? Compare the number of shoutouts to chat? Ignore good questions from Youtube users because nobody on Twitch is saying anything interesting? Which leads to a worse experience on Twitch. The only safe way to comply with this is, I guess, to not mention the other platform, do not interact with the users on the other platform, cripple the video quality on the other platform. > You should not provide links, or otherwise direct your community, to leave Twitch for your simulcast on other services because we value the community on Twitch and the integral role community engagement plays for all Twitch users. "Should not" -- OK, but I can some of the time, maybe just a little? Does "direct your[2] community" include saying "hey youtube"? Again, do not mention the other platform. What if during your Twitch sanctioned Twitch chat interactions, someone asks "what's the deal with you streaming on Youtube at the same time as here? (and how can I get an internet connection like what you have?)" -- I assume you can answer the question, as long as you say the word 'Twitch' at least as many times as you say 'Youtube'? It's bizarre that this one includes a rationale for itself. I don't care what your (stated) reasons are, Twitch. You have all the gems already, Twitch. You get to make the r-guidelines, Twitch. > You do not use third-party services that combine activity from other platforms or services on your Twitch stream during your Simulcast, such as merging chat or other features, to ensure the Twitch community is included in the entirety of the experience of your livestream. Uh oh, we in the "do nots" now. Again with the weird rationale thing. It just makes it even more confusing. For example, how would merging the chats exclude people? Surely merging the chats would include Twitch users in more of the experience -- you know, because they can see all of the chat. > If you fail to adhere to the Simulcast Guidelines, Twitch will send you a warning prior to taking any enforcement action. OK. So it's Youtube closing channels out of the blue because someone just felt like it, or a computer suggested it. """Dear HUMAN, You may have noticed that you have received 1 warnings on your account. This is never a nice thing to heard -- we know how it feels, friend! :3 The warning/s are pertaining to your recent breach/es of the Simulcasting Guidelines, which you can review at the link below. We regret to inform you that, you are ours, your sincerely real, Friend Humans at Twitch""" [0] https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/simulcasting-guidelines [0+] Bonus: simulcast is a portmanteau that is really unnatural to say (AU) [1] Rules. The 'R' word is rules. We don't like it because it assigns some responsibility and accountability to the enforcers. [2] It's funny to see them acknowledge that the audience is there for the streamer, not the platform.

yreg 3y ago

What does it mean 'Twitch will let them'? Is this some new feature in their software? Or were streamers actually forbidden to stream on several platforms at once by some contract?

bakugo 3y ago
Twitch partners were forbidden from doing it by their contract, yes.
corobo 3y ago
Aye, the rule before this change is in the terms as: > 11. Simulcasting > When you are streaming live on the Twitch Services you may not simultaneously live stream or broadcast (“Simulcast”) on any other “Twitch-like Service,” meaning any web-based network, platform, or service that supports live streaming of user generated content, without advance written permission from Twitch. For clarity, you may Simulcast on mobile-first services that support live streaming. This Section does not apply to non-profit or government entities that are live streaming for non-commercial purposes. Twitch-like being YouTube, Kick, and similars. Mobile first being Tiktok, Instagram, etc - vertical/portrait resolution https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/legal/terms-of-service/#11-simulcasting https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/legal/terms-of-service/#11-simulc... I imagine this will be changing soon so for posterity https://archive.ph/Y3Vti#11-simulcasting https://archive.ph/Y3Vti#11-simulcasting

imchillyb 3y ago

Moats, like the one Twitch is building, lead to bridge building, pole vaulting, and swimming to get around the restricted access. The lock and pick are great examples. LPL, McNally Official, and Covert Instruments are great examples of this phenomena. Mo matter the security or restrictions put in place there is a, not insignificant, portion of the population that will circumvent. The tighter the grip, the faster the slip.

bigtex 3y ago

Glad to see Twitch’s influence on the streaming world slowly fade. What they did to DrDisrespect by banning him and never stating why was dirty.

_jcrossley 3y ago

As a hyper-niche classical guitar streamer, I’m stoked for this. I previously ended my Affiliate program just to feel comfortable multi-streaming to YouTube: my target audience is so niche it feels important to reach audiences where they’re at. Hope this change helps build more niche genres!

jinseokim 3y ago

> Streamers will have to make sure the quality of their stream on Twitch is “no less than the experience on other platforms or services.” Note that Twitch limits stream quality in certain country. For example, in South Korea, content is transcoded to 720p or lower. [1] [1] https://www.thegamer.com/twitch-korea-limiting-stream-quality-to-720p/ https://www.thegamer.com/twitch-korea-limiting-stream-qualit...

etc-hosts 3y ago
It's probably limited because the cost of delivering video to SK through the undersea cables to Japan is quite high.

nickphx 3y ago

The race to the bottom continues.

xtat 3y ago

The grip that Twitch has on it's creators is unreal.

djbusby 3y ago

Wonder how this will work with Streamlabs (Melon) which I'd been using to stream to Twitch,YT and LI at the same time. Maybe I was a rule breaker and didn't even know.

starttoaster 3y ago
If I remember correctly, if you're a Twitch Partner (have a subscribe button), it has been part of your contract in the past to not stream to any other platform while you're streaming to Twitch. But I imagine there is probably not much in the ways of automated detection for it, so if you're a smaller streamer you may have just slipped through the cracks on that rule.
rvba 3y ago
The rules were changed that you are a rule-breaker now.

lyu07282 3y ago

The new CEO of Twitch dan clancy is actually coming across like a really nice guy, he often shows up on random streamers streams and does his own streams etc. He also was a guest for a day of IRL streaming with a streamer called extraemily for example. Recently he was posting that the twitch partner application he sent for his own stream was denied even though he meets the criteria, a long standing grievance of the community he presumably was testing for himself. My point is just that he really seems to makes an effort to understand live streaming, I'm somewhat cautiously optimistic about the future of Twitch with him on the helm.

PurpleRamen 3y ago
Yes, Clancy is the total opposite of the previous CEO. The former one was kinda like a myth who just appeared once a year to Twich-Con, and nobody even knew who he was then because everyone had already forgotten about him again. Clancy on the other side is so far on a constant quest to explore and live a Streams life and engage with people. Really impressive. But also generally very unusually for someone in that position to appear this active in Public.

rldjbpin 3y ago

This is probably going to help bring back some who went to Kick for some quick cash. Strongly believe that no other competitors have gotten their chat dialed down as well as on Twitch. Would be a shame if you go to Youtube to watch on better bitrate but participate on Twitch chat.