Twitch to creators: Oops, never mind.
The Amazon-owned livestreaming platform on Wednesday revoked its new branded-content guidelines the day after putting them into place, following a backlash from creators.
The changes, which were scheduled to be effective July 1, would have restricted the kinds of ads allowed on Twitch — completely banning “burned-in” (i.e., in-stream) video, audio and display ads on the platform and restricting on-screen logos to a maximum of 3% of the screen size.
Twitch on Wednesday reversed course. “Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming. These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately,” Twitch said in a statement.
The platform’s statement continued, “Sponsorships are critical to streamers’ growth and ability to earn income. We will not prevent your ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors — you will continue to own and control your sponsorship business.” It added: “We appreciate your feedback and help in making this change.”
According to Twitch, it paid out more than $1 billion to streamers in 2022. The platform says it has more than 31 million average daily visitors (and that at any given moment an average of 2.5 million people are watching livestreams). On a monthly basis, some 7 million streamers go live on Twitch, the company says.
Amazon, which acquired Twitch in 2014, recently made layoffs at Twitch as part of a large wave of job cuts. In March, former CEO Emmett Shear resigned after 16 years at the livestreaming platform. Following the November 2020 departure of former COO Kevin Lin (one of the founders of predecessor company Justin.tv), Shear had been the only co-founder still at the company.