Ten Years of TwitchCon: Here’s What We Announced in Rotterdam

We just stepped off of the stage at TwitchCon Rotterdam, marking our tenth year of TwitchCon. We have the absolute best community, and we’re so grateful to have spent all these years making memories IRL. Your commitment and passion for Twitch has made TwitchCon bigger and better, year, after year, after year.

This is a big moment of celebration for us, and we plan to keep the party going all year long! We have a big weekend planned in Rotterdam, kicking off year ten, and we’re pumped to keep the celebration going in San Diego later this year.

If you’re following along at home, thanks for joining us! You can watch content streamed from various stages, including /twitch, /nomnom, /TwitchRivals, and /creatorcamp. The full schedule of content for the weekend is here.

Our keynote covered a lot of ground, so we put together a roundup with all the highlights. Here’s what we announced this year.

IMPROVING THE MOBILE EXPERIENCE

The Twitch mobile app continues to be a huge area of focus for us. And that’s because many viewers — including brand new viewers — are watching streams on their phones.

Last year, we made several improvements to mobile with that goal in mind, including the launch of the Discovery Feed, the Clips Feed, and Stories. Together, these led to an increase in the number of both video plays and channel follows.

So what’s next for mobile?

VERTICAL VIDEO & DUAL STREAMING

When viewers come to your channel, we want to make sure they’re getting the best possible viewing experience, no matter what screen they’re watching on.

To get your streams looking better on smaller devices, we’re rolling out dual-format streaming and vertical viewing.

With dual-format streaming, streamers using enhanced broadcasting will be able to give us both a horizontal and a vertical layout at the same time. For our initial rollout, we’ll be partnering with Aitum Vertical to bring dual format support to OBS.

This allows us to better optimize the viewing experience for a device and how a viewer is using that device. Viewers watching on desktop will still see landscape. Viewers on mobile will see your vertical layout if they hold the phone vertically, or landscape if they rotate their phone horizontally.

The new vertical layout makes it easier for viewers to participate in events like Hype Trains and support you by subbing, gifting, and cheering while watching your stream in full screen. They’ll also be able to customize chat to have more control over how much chat they see on screen.

We really care about getting this right, so we’ll be testing dual-format streaming and the new vertical theater with a small number of channels this summer before slowly expanding to more users later this year.

2K ROLLOUT ANNOUNCE

At TwitchCon last fall, we announced plans to start testing 2k streaming in closed beta with a small number of streamers. 2k streams, also known as 1440p streams, offer a big visual step up from 1080p, with much more detail and clarity.

We will increase bitrates for 2k streams, and these will use a newer HEVC codec that offers higher quality streams with lower bitrates. And with Twitch Enhanced Broadcasting technology, we will automatically adjust the stream quality based on your viewers bandwidth, so viewers will see the best version of your stream with no lagging or buffering.

Starting today, we are expanding beta access to 2K streaming for Partners and Affiliates. We’ll be expanding access gradually, so sign up on the waitlist here and keep an eye on your email to see if you’re in!

MAKING STREAMING A CAREER FOR MORE CREATORS

Twitch is the best place to be a streamer. And for that to remain true, we need to make sure streaming is a viable career for as many creators as possible.

COMBOS ARE COMING

Last year in San Diego, we demoed a feature that makes it easier and more fun to celebrate big moments and support streamers. A lot of work has gone into it since then, and we’re excited about where we’ve landed – Combos.

At its core, Combos is about the community rallying together to amplify moments on stream while supporting the streamer with Bits — whether it’s a celebration, an epic fail, or a hilarious moment.

A Combo starts with a single tap, and anyone in the community can jump in to keep the Combo going and unleash bigger and bigger effects. Whether it’s an explosion of DancingDinos, GlassHearts, CutieCats, or one of the many other Combos effects we have planned, Chat can very literally take over the screen and make your best moments more memorable, and more shareable.

Combos is currently in closed beta, and we’re gradually expanding it to more streamers in the coming weeks. If you’re already on the waitlist, we’ll email you when you’re in. And if you’re not, sign up today and you could be in the next wave.

We’ll be adding more Combo types and bigger Combo effects over the next few months, so make sure you don’t miss out.

STREAMER-LED PROMOTIONS

Another way to earn more is through promotions on subs.

We all know and love SUBtember, which we will be doing again this year. But one thing we’ve heard from streamers is that they wish they could celebrate their own milestones, or run promotions at times that work better for them.

Starting very soon, streamers will be able to run their own gift sub promotions. It could be for a streamer-versary, a Partner-versary, or just because you feel like it.

To start, Partners and Affiliates will be given 70 hours of promotional time to use in up to seven different promotions throughout the year. For example, you could do seven 10 hour promotions, or whatever split feels right for your goals.

For now, promotions will be limited to 35% off bundles of 5+ gift subs, but we’re exploring other promotions types as well. This feature will enter beta in the coming weeks.

UNLOCKING MONETIZATION FOR MORE STREAMERS

We’re also thinking of more ways to set all of our streamers up for success. There are currently over 1 million Twitch Affiliates, but there are millions more streamers who have ambitions to grow their channels.

To help jumpstart these creators, later this summer we’ll be giving all streamers access to select monetization and community tools before they reach Affiliate. This change will help new streamers engage their audience and grow their following more effectively.

While all streamers will now be able to accrue revenue, payouts will be reserved for Partners and Affiliates. To ensure all streamers have access to the money they make on Twitch, we’re rolling out the ability to use the money made streaming to purchase gift subs and Bits. This is a great way for streamers who haven’t reached the minimum payout threshold to get faster access to the money they make. That said, we will always default to paying out Partners and Affiliates, if the payment threshold is met.

Finally, to ensure we’re helping as many streamers as possible earn on Twitch, we’re making reaching Affiliate status more achievable. You can find the updated Affiliate requirements in your Creator Dashboard or on the Affiliate help page.

CAPITALIZING ON YOUR BEST MOMENTS

Clips are a great way to showcase the most entertaining moments from your streams, help new viewers discover what your community is all about, and help you stay top of mind with your existing community. We’ve been building a lot in this area.

In an ideal world, you stream, and then we help you find and share your best moments right after you are done streaming, in just 5 to 10 minutes. We’re working on features that will allow you to do just that. These new tools will suggest Clips from your most engaging moments, making it easier for you to review, edit, and publish after your stream.

Plus, soon, all viewers will be able to clip without leaving the stream, with a new less disruptive clipping flow.

And we want to continue rewarding viewers who clip and share your best moments, with features like the new Clip Leaderboard, which recognizes viewers who create the most viewed clips of your channel and rewards them with new Top Clipper chat badges.

Finally, as we invest more into creating and sharing clips, we’re going to be adding reactions to Clips, so your community can continue to come together and react to those moments after your stream. More to come!

WATCH STREAKS

Some of you may be familiar with the Watch Streaks, which acknowledge community members for showing up regularly to your stream and rewarding them with channel points. After experimenting with watch streaks for some time, we are getting ready to roll them out to all channels later this year.

One of the problems we have found in the experiment is that it is frustrating for viewers and streamers when they break their watch streak because a streamer does an unscheduled stream or goes live at an unusual time. To solve this problem, we are going to make it so that if you miss a stream you can always watch a clip or a VOD from the stream to keep the streak going.

PAUSE, REWIND, RESUME

Clips are great for catching the best moments of a stream after it’s over, but what about when you arrive late? Or what if you need to step away from a stream for a few minutes?

To solve this problem, we’re rolling out rewind. You can rewind a stream to the part you missed, then resume the stream and join the action in real time. This has been a frequent community request, so we’re excited to bring it to Twitch. We’ll be testing with a small number of viewers later this summer to help refine rewind.

MAKING COLLABORATIONS MORE REWARDING

Collaborations are one of the best ways to grow your channel on Twitch. By joining forces with other streamers, you can find new audiences, try out different content, and build more connections.

As part of improving the mobile experience, we’ve simplified the process for starting and managing a Shared Chat on mobile. This will enable anyone—but especially IRL streamers—to collaborate more easily on the go.

This update will be rolled out to all streamers next month.

WELCOMING MORE PEOPLE TO TWITCH

We’re launching right-to-left Arabic on Twitch. Arabic is one of the most spoken languages in the world, and this update will open the door for even more people to join in on Twitch and build community here. We’ll have more to share this summer.

We’re also doubling down on IRL community events and experiences. In the past year alone, we’ve invited creators to connect in places like Barcelona, Dublin, New York, London, Sao Paolo, Sydney, Austin, Hamburg, San Francisco, Japan, Taiwan, Rio, and right here in the Netherlands. We’re excited to offer even more of these experiences this year.

CELEBRATING OUR MODS

IT’S MOD APPRECIATION DAY!

The first day of TwitchCon landed on Mod Appreciation Day!

We started Mod Appreciation Day five years ago as a community-wide way to thank Mods for their service. Mods are a very important part of the Twitch community, and we wouldn’t be who we are without them.

We’re excited to roll out a couple new tools to help make Mods’ jobs easier.

First up, we’ve brought mobile Mod View to the Android App. Mod View on mobile gives Mods easier access to their most important tools, designed for a smaller screen experience. This update is now live!

Second, we’re launching the Twitch Moderators Club. Mods help protect their favorite communities, but we think Mods should also have a space that’s all theirs.

Similar to our Unity Guilds and Creator Clubs, the Twitch Moderators Club is meant to help foster connection and community. This is a new private Discord space for Mods where you can connect, share ideas, access educational workshops, and sharpen your swords together. We’ll be sending out notification on Twitch after this weekend so you can apply and join.

Keep an eye out for more on today’s announcements in the coming months! Please continue to share your thoughts and feedback. See you in Chat!