• The TwitchCon 2018 keynote (Friday 10/26) shared impressive engagement metrics for the platform. There were 18.2B chat messages and whispers sent, 85M cheers and subscriptions, 3.2B interactions with extensions, and 150M clips created.
• Leading up to TwitchCon, we did a buzz survey of 11 streamers to get a better sense for how they monetize their Twitch channels.
• A vast majority of income comes from subscriptions (63%), with the rest coming from donations (32%), advertisements (3.5%) and affiliate links (1.5%). The streamers’ income had risen by 30% from last year. They anticipate income to grow 21% next year.

Buzz Survey Results

• Streamer income has risen 30% since last year. Looking to 2019, streamers anticipate their income will grow 21%.
• Twitch channel revenue: 63% subscriptions, 32% donations, 3.5% advertising, and 1.5% affiliate links.
• We expect advertising revenue to account for a bigger share next year with the launch of Twitch Turbo.

We also asked streamers about their biggest challenges. We think about those challenges in three areas: building an audience, monetizing an audience, and commitment to suffering.  Most of the challenges in our survey were around building an audience and committing to the grind. On the audience growth side, streamers mentioned how it can be difficult bringing Twitch viewers to other social media platforms for continued engagement beyond Twitch. Streamers rely on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to communicate with fans outside of streams and bring new viewers to their channels. When it comes to the commitment to suffering to provide consistent and reliable entertainment, streamers cited the difficulty of sticking to a consistent streaming schedule and finding the motivation to stream day in and day out.

TwitchCon 2018 Keynote

During the opening keynote,Twitch CEO Emmet Shear emphasized the importance and its appreciation of the community. Shear used the word “community” 46 times (according to his own count). He also shared the impressive engagement metrics that Twitch has had over the last year. In all, there were 21.6B moments of interaction between viewers and channels.

Throughout the keynote, Twitch announced a few product improvements and new tools coming to the platform. The most important being Squad Stream. Starting in January, up to four streamers will be able to play together in a single view. Viewers will be able to easily switch between views and enter different chat rooms of the channels.

Twitch also shared improvements to its moderating features, additional Twitch Rivals events, an expanded Bounty Board, a channel role dashboard, and other features. In tune with their message, the new Twitch features build community and promote viewer engagement.

Twitch seems well aware of the desire of streamers to have better tools to engage their audiences. The company’s announcements at TwitchCon show that it’s committed to helping its streamers build and better engage with their audiences.

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