TechScape: Twitch and the dark side of the streaming dream
After streamer complaints of a toxic community culture, slashes in earnings and an unsustainable work model, what next for the Amazon-owned site?
Twitch is having a rough time. The live-streaming site, owned by Amazon since 2014, is synonymous for many with video games. The audience for TechScape is broad, so forgive me: some of you will wonder why I have to explain that Twitch is where viewers watch microcelebrities play video games, interact with those influencers and experience tight parasocial relationships of the sort that other communities have with podcasters, YouTubers or newsletter authors. (I love you, too). Others will wonder why anyone would want to watch someone playing video games.
Whether you get it or not, there's no questioning that Twitch streamers are bona fide celebrities. We're some years out now from 31-year-old Richard Blevins - better known as Ninja - hitting headlines in 2018 for playing Fortnite against Drake and earning an easy million-dollar salary in the process.
Talking to the people around that table, I was instead astonished - and, honestly, worried - by how hard they worked. The woman sitting next to me told me that she streams for eight to 10 hours every day, and when she wasn't live she was curating her social media, responding to fans, scouting for brand partnerships or collaborations with other streamers; throughout our conversation she was visibly resisting the impulse to check her phone, where new stats and fan comments and potential opportunities were presumably stacking up. I asked what she does for fun and she seemed genuinely confused by the question.
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