Giant Bomb on Twitch?

Do you think the Giant Bomb Twitch channel should be Partnered? Say what you will about the Twitch community but it would be another source of revenue for GB. That one guy at the PAX panel was asking how he could give them MORE money, Twitch would be another way to do that.

No, because Giant Bomb staff and moderators do not monitor the Twitch chat at all. They even disable the YouTube live stream chats. I don't think it would be fair to try to grow a Twitch community with paid subscriptions, when they don't even look at Twitch chat.

I think it is a potential future direction for Giant Bomb. Moderators can always be arranged. I'm guessing that all it would take is a specific member of Giant Bomb to spearhead the Twitch side of things. Who knows? Maybe that is a sales pitch they are getting on a regular basis for people who want to be hired by them.

A partnership would mean they couldn't simultaneously stream elsewhere, no?

According to GamesBeat, most partnered streamers have an exclusivity clause where they can only stream gaming content on Twitch.

GamesBeat itself has a partnered Twitch channel, and their contract agreement states

(1.3 – Exclusivity) and Exhibit A: You would not be able to stream live gaming related content on any other service except for Twitch

Can't you have subs on Twitch without being partnered? Will Smith simul-streams on Twitch/YouTube/Mixer and he has subs on Twitch.

@bruhaha: Yeah, you can get a sub button with Twitch's new Affiliate Program. If you go to Will Smith's Twitch page, he has a sub button, but doesn't have the purple check mark next to his name, which Twitch partners automatically receive. Affiliates and Partners have different contractual agreements, so Will can stream to whatever service he wants.

But if you go to Giant Bomb's Twitch page, you'll notice that they're already partnered on Twitch from the purple check mark next to their name.

Giant Bomb has opted-out of the sub button, and puts the Twitch chatroom in subscriber mode only, so only subscribers can chat. Which is how they get around Twitch removing the function of disabling chat. No one can chat in Giant Bomb's Twitch chat because no one is a Twitch sub there. And no one can be a Twitch sub there, because there is no sub button.

@tuxedocruise : What benefits does GB get from being a partner if they turn off subs and chat? It's not like they need the VOD storage.

And as a partner they already simul-stream to Twitch, their own site, and youtube sometimes anyways so are they breaking the Twitch partnership agreement already?

@bruhaha: Partners have additional benefits, such as having quality settings for their streams (360p, 480p, 720p, 1080p), promotion slots on the Twitch front page, and the first to use new features as they roll out.

GB most likely has a smaller contract agreement with Twitch. Twitch partners have monetary tools like subscribers, and being able to accept donation money in the form of Twitch Bits through cheering. GB seems to have opted out of all monetary benefits, and only uses the promotional tools of being a Twitch partner.

Seeing as the only thing on GB's Twitch channel profile is a link to this site, I think GB is just using Twitch and YouTube as advertising platforms, and not as places to develop communities with paying members.

GamesBeat also streams to other places outside of Twitch, and they also seemed to have opted out of Twitch monetization on their Twitch channel.

@tuxedocruise Why would Twitch promote them if they don't make any money for Twitch? I haven't seen any promotion but it might be there.

They could switch to being affiliate and get most of the benefits. Although yeah, since they have Premium, Twitch subs are redundant. Not sure if the potential to get a bunch of additional revenue from Prime free subs would be worth having to pay more attention to the Twitch side of things.

@bruhaha: They still make money for Twitch the same way all Twitch channels make money for Twitch for non-subscribers: pre-roll ads and mid-stream ads.

I never go to the Twitch homepage, because it's two extra clicks to get to my followed channels page, which is the page I actually have bookmarked. But I do remember the July 3, 2013 GB Independence Day stream, where they got over 5,000 viewers from being on the Twitch homepage. That date and its events would've been forgettable for me, but Ryan Davis has forever ingrained that date into my mind.

One of the reasons is probably because of Jeff's disgust at the idea of forced links to a game's sale page when linking games. While I won't assume to know Jeff's issue with it, here's some context and why it would bother me:

Twitch now allows streamers to make a cut when a game is sold through their marketplace. This appears as a link to a game store page next to the "playing X" note u set a stream. This means if Giant Bomb were accepting Twitch money, they could be accused of bribery as they would directly be seen to profit from praising games. Conversely, when they want to warn people away from the game, they're undermined by a literal button under the stream to buy the game.

While it looks like for now you could opt out of this feature whilw still receiving ad revenue, it does set a questionable move for any press or editorial content on Twitch.

It would have to be patterned with cbsi which i doubt would happen. I think people forget giant bomb is no longer an independent startup.