TwitchCon is officially over, and there were a lot of announcements packed into the event’s weekend. The convention kicked off with the Official Twitch Keynote that is run by the company’s CEO, Emmett Shear.
The Twitch Rivals' esports program has awarded over $5 Million in prizes within 2018 but they are is doubling the program’s size in 2019.
Twitch announced that the company has invested more resources into their esports program, Twitch Rivals. The Rivals esports program has awarded over $5 Million in prizes within 2018. Twitch is looking to double the program’s size, bringing the total amount of events to 128 in 2019. The CEO also announced that the number of games within the program will expand to include MOBAs and single-player games.
Twitch revealed their new project that they have been working on alongside Harmonix, Twitch Sings. The karaoke-style game was designed specifically for Twitch streamers. The catalog of songs is hundreds-deep, which leaves tons of content for streamers and their community to interact. The closed beta for Twitch Sings will begin later in 2018 for PC and iOS users, and later on Android.
Later within the keynote, Twitch talked with the audience about streamer discovery. With the influx of viewers and streamers, it is difficult for newer streamers to break the ceiling of recognition. Twitch will begin to implement new options for streamers, like squad streams, more highlight editor options, and a new featured section. The squad stream option will allow up to four individual streamers to be seen in a “single-view.” This option will be available to select streamers later in 2018.
Twitch rounded out the keynote with new moderation options. Streamers and moderators will be able to hand out “VIP badges”. These new badges will allow streamers and viewers to build a stronger community while honoring their loyal community members. There are new moderation tools that will be available in 2019 as well.
“By clicking on someone’s Twitch username, moderators will now be able to see how long that person has been on Twitch, view chat messages that person has sent in the channel, and see the number of timeouts or bans that account has received in that channel. Mods can also leave channel-specific comments about each user to share with the channel owner and other mods.” – Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch.
