Twitch announced a new creator tier on Thursday that would restore a more favorable subscription revenue split to streamers who qualify, with some strings attached.
Last September, Twitch announced plans to strip some streamers of the 70/30 revenue share they once enjoyed. Twitch streamers grandfathered into the premium arrangement would still be able to keep 70% of the first $100,000 earned on the platform, but after that the share would revert to the default 50/50 share. Those changes were set to go into effect this month, in June 2023, hence the new announcement.
Now, Twitch is launching something called the Partner Plus program. Streamers who qualify for Partner Plus will get 70% of the revenue they generate from monthly subscriptions and gift subscriptions. But the program does have some caveats. For one, only the first $100,000 earned annually is eligible for the 70/30 breakdown.
Beyond that, the Partner Plus program also requires that streamers maintain a minimum of 350 paid subscribers for three consecutive months to be eligible — a requirement that will freeze out a wide swath of streamers just getting started. Once a streamer qualifies for Partner Plus, they’ll be enrolled for 12 months (and not kicked out if they go below the 350 sub threshold).
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Twitch’s decision to ditch the legacy 70/30 revenue deals last year, which only affected a subset of top streamers, sowed controversy in the broader community at the time. Streamers large and small have pushed the company to move from its standard 50/50 revenue agreement (half of subscription revenue earned on Twitch goes to creators, half to the platform) to a breakdown that’s more favorable to the people making content. At the time, then Twitch president Dan Clancy, who is now the company’s CEO, said that ideally “all streamers would be on the same set of terms regardless of size.”
The new program is a boon to creators stuck with the 50/50 revenue split, but ultimately it might do little to assuage complaints that the platform extracts too much from the creators who populate its lively communities while streaming thousands of hours of compelling content. Twitch’s community is particularly sensitive to changes at the moment, after the company announced stringent new branded content rules only to roll them back after a platform-wide backlash.
Anyone who meets the criteria for Partner Plus from July through September will be notified in October, when the new program launches.
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