Yakoob on 1/3/2017 at 08:56

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[video=youtube;ss0ENZ-ZMbY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss0ENZ-ZMbY[/video]

TL;DR - you will soon be able to buy games directly via Twitch, with the Streamer getting a (variable) % of the cut of the sales.

I like the idea of streamers getting some cut and potentially creating a better cooperation between devs and streamers. However, I agree with Tarmack in the video that this way is just bound to create biases. Worse yet, I fear it will make the discoverability problem worse by further widening the game between popular and struggling titles.

Aside from successful studios giving bigger cuts, streamers now have an even greater incentive (aside from getting viewers) to play popular games. The more popular a game, the bigger the sales, the more money they make.
Why play a game no one heard of and probably won't buy over the next hot release that is guaranteed sales?

Naturally, not every streamer is unethically profit oriented, but some might, even subconsciously.

It would be interesting to see a sliding scale model where the revenue % decreases with game sales. Thus, it would incentive streamers to actually showcase less-popular niche games and shed more light on them. Alas, that would probably just lead to the same problems but in reverse...

Malf on 1/3/2017 at 10:47

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It's where people watch other people playing games rather than playing games themselves.

Okay, that's rather cynical and dismissive, but that's a lot of what it's about.

It's handy for eSports (which again, I really don't understand the pull of), and it's great when the various "Games Done Quick" events are on, seeing people play ace games in fantastically weird and broken ways. In fact, I think that's where I get the most value out of Twitch.

I did find the recent "See Bots Chat" channel hilarious... for about 5 minutes. It was basically getting two Google Home bots chatting to each-other.

And the various "Twitch Plays..." are interesting social experiments. But as with EVE, they're more interesting to read about than to watch or play yourself.

Mind you, I'm an Internet dinosaur who doesn't understand or use Twitter, Reddit or Facebook. About as close as I get to any "Social Media" is very occasionally browsing Google+

I started with Internet forums, and I'll continue using them as long as they're around. I much prefer the curated community feel of them.