Study Shows The Disappointing Truth Of Twitch Boosts
In the midst of the Twitch versus YouTube Gaming battle, both platforms implemented new features. While YouTube decided to throw out the public dislike count, Twitch rolled out a pay-to-win beta program where viewers could pay to boost a streamer. Despite how broken Twitch's system sounds, new data showed that it didn't help streamers at all and it only made Twitch look shadier.
The beta, which went live in late October, was only available for a small number of US-based streamers and viewers. After about a month, streaming analyst Zach Bussey — who also streams on Twitch – broke down the 30-day numbers for 125 different streamers and compared them to the same statistics from 30 days before the beta.
Bussey analyzed several statistics during the time period: Average Concurrent Viewers, Followers, Views, Peak Viewership, Hours Streamed, and Total Followers. He wanted to see if there would be significant increases in any of these areas, and the results were disappointing, to say the least.
Bussey laid the data out on a spreadsheet, which also had percentages of change that were color-coded to easily see how each streamer did. The numbers were about 50/50 across the board, and Bussey explained that it meant no one saw any kind of success from the feature.
Twitch boosts didn't change anything
While some streamers might have improved their statistics over the 30-days Bussey recorded information, he pointed out that those streamers were probably already growing — chances are, those streamers would have continued to grow without the paid boost. Bussey went on to say that, when offering a paid feature, the numbers should generally be positive across the board. A 50/50 mix of positive and negative wasn't evidence that the boost did anything. Bussey clearly stated that, in his opinion, the paid boost did nothing for these streamers.
Considering that the newest feature caused an uproar online after it was announced, these results were shocking. Part of the critique from the internet was that streamers would never see the money from boosts, and it just seemed like another way for Twitch to line its own pockets. Now that the numbers showed that the boost didn't do anything, the outrage was basically proven true.
While the program is in beta right now, it'll be interesting to see whether or not Twitch decides to permanently launch the paid boost feature after the negative results. Plenty of streamers has spoken out against the program, including the YouTube Gaming streamer TimTheTatman.