Twitch Vs. Youtube

[nomad 6]

Twitch was originally created for game related content, however, these days you can publish almost anything on Twitch. Youtube is for all kinds of content, including game. Have you used these platforms for your game-related content. Which do you think is better for game related content? Which platform is easier when it comes to monetize your game-content.

[EmpireKicking 155]

There just isn't a better place than Twitch to be for many streamers. Other platforms do have appealing things about them (Facebook with their better protections in terms of music and 100% sub split in some instances come to mind).

 

I know a lot of people say the opposite but in terms of discoverability and growth potential Twitch is the best possible site to be on. Their recommendations filter does help bring newer and smaller sized channels to light. Things such as Teams can help so much in terms of networking. Raiding/Hosting built in is MASSIVE. The overall culture of using your favorite streamers emotes in other chats helps gets eyes on creators when a nice emote pops up. Twitch has so many little things going for it to help discovery.

 

The biggest hurdle with the platform is getting away from the 0-5 viewer mark which will be hard no matter where you stream.

Monetization depends on how you look at it. I will say that Twitch's monetization is leaps ahead of where it was when I started. When I started streamers had to use a third party site called "Gamewisp" to do a sort of off site sub button. It worked for what it was but now affiliate opens up on platform sub buttons, bits and ad revenue. You can monetize in so many ways as well with extensions that play sound alerts for bits, bit emotes, higher tier sub emotes, I've seen little arcade game panels that let you pay 10 bits to play a quick round of some little game. Add in gift subs, sub goals, badges, hype trains etcetc there are so many built in incentives for people to support channels. Could the splits on these things be better? Yes. However, the opportunity to make a nice check here and there is great.

 

Even going beyond that there is so much that makes it stand out. Overall page design is great. Being able to add custom panel images, having a built in schedule page, putting down your recommended streamers, run extensions for captions or ways to interact with the stream, having a nice trailer displayed. Everything is laid out great for the viewer and no other platform can really match the overall feeling of the site.

Twitch isn't perfect, but they attract such a massive userbase because the sum of all its parts. I couldn't see myself going anywhere else for a long time. Other platforms have so many areas to catch up in.

[Shortie861 10]

I have used both Twitch and YouTube for game related content both for streaming and also for videos and if I am honest, Twitch is okay and you can build a community on there if you stream enough but the discoverability on Twitch can be a pain especially if you are a new or smaller streamer. For YouTube, it is great to be able to get yourself out there on there and to also be able to push your content out to more eyes but if you want to be successful on YouTube you definitely need to be uploading long form videos, shorts and streaming to see any real growth. 

Each platform works different for each individual though and what may work for one person may not work for another. It's about trying things and seeing what works.