Recently Twitch.TV (also now known as Prime Gaming) has been making changes to how ads run on their service. They have found a way (and then another way and so forth) to stop ad blockers from letting people avoid their ads. Now, this has been on ongoing battle between adblocks and Twitch but it seems the tides are turning in favor of the streaming giant and the users are left unable to circumvent the series of sponsored videos. This has led to a slew of rage-filled posts on the Twitch subreddit and elsewhere as people feel bombarded with unwanted ads. While I’m no fan of ads interrupting my viewing experience, I seem to have the unpopular opinion that Twitch attempting to ensure their ads get seen is… okay.
In this post, I’m going to discuss the if Twitch forcing ads is okay (and what would be okay if not what they are doing), their other means of revenue, and what the options mean to the end user.
How Twitch Makes Money
First we need to consider how Twitch brings home the big ones.
- Ad Revenue – Sponsored video clips that play before or during the streamers content
- Subscriptions – $4.99 for a month of perks on a specific channel, including removing ads. There are also more expensive tiers.
- Twitch Turbo – $8.99/mo for essentially no ads across the whole platform and a couple of little perks
- Bits – The base price is $1.40 for 100 bits which equals $1.00 that can be cheered (donated) to a streamer.
- Sponsorships – Occasionally twitch partners with companies in ways outside of directly running ads, usually coordinating with streamers. It’s impossible for me to speculate how much this earns and is likely the least common source of revenue for them.
What It Means
As we can see, outside of the rare sponsorships and ad revenue, every other source of income for twitch comes from the user. This means that watching ads is the only “free” way we can support Twitch or, in other words, that Twitch can earn money without having to charge their viewers.
Twitch Is a Business
A huge thing we have to consider is that Twitch, at the end of the day, is a business. Businesses exist to earn money. If this platform stopped earning any money it would be closed. We cannot have Twitch without them earning money somehow and that money earned is always connected to the end user (consumer) in some way. In the same way that you wouldn’t expect to go into a store and leave with several games for free (that’s usually called stealing), you shouldn’t expect Twitch to not charge someone something. But… if you could go to your grocery store, watch a 30 second promotional video and then leave without having to pay for your food… wouldn’t that be pretty nice?
Twitch Ads: Good or Bad?
While essentially no one likes having to watch ads, I cannot see an argument that Twitch having them is bad (or in this specific discussion, trying to break adblock so that we have to watch said ads). “Free” digital services are almost always paid for by ad viewing or other sponsored content that is shown to the viewer by the platform on behalf of some other company. JoeBobAds pays Twitch to show us ads. We contribute to that process by watching them. If Twitch could not deliver any ads to any viewers, they would find ways to monetize other areas more heavily. Streamers would likely get a smaller cut of subs and bits could be more expensive. They might put certain content behind a pay wall, limit the quality of free streams, limit the amount you could watch or more. This is definitely not good for the user. Twitch being able to earn money from ad revenue is vastly superior than the other options – for the user.
So What’s the Problem?
The problem is ads are annoying. Opening up a stream and seeing an advertisement (particularly an uninteresting one) is annoying. Switching to a new stream (particularly if you’re trying to browse around a bit for new streamers) and having to wait through an ad before the content starts each time is even more annoying. But what seems to really frustrate people is when ads run in the middle of the stream, without streamer prompting. This is also where I ran into some difficulty researching this article. I can’t be certain when the ads are streamer prompted or not. I talked to a couple of smaller streamers and they said they never had any negative feedback regarding midroll ads (they also don’t run any themselves). However, having a viewer pool of 20-50 people who are probably mostly subbed is not a useful amount of data.
Going into larger streams results in difficulty getting precise responses from the streamer and chat seemed to have totally different opinions. In one stream I regularly watch, there was a midroll ad. It was during a lobby load time and I have always assumed those are queued by the streamer because nothing is happening. I’ve ONLY seen ads on that streamer during the lobby wait period. However, I asked the streamer once (no response) and then asked chat. Several members of chat proceeded to tell me different things with some believing Twitch did it and some believing the streamer did. While I’m fairly convinced that the streamer purposefully ran that ad (and the other ones they run) given the timing, some of their viewers passionately believe that it was exclusively Twitch controlled. Which leads me to a new issue.
Confusion and a Lack of Information
If viewers believe it’s always Twitch’s doing, even though in this case it was (likely) done by the streamer, could Twitch be getting blamed for midroll ads that their system isn’t causing? From discussions I’ve had with people about this, some are very convinced that their streamers are not choosing to run ads (ever) but they still occur even outside of the initial load. So, we have a situation where either viewers are confused about who is causing the ad to run OR some viewers and/or streamers are getting different ad viewing experiences. I couldn’t find a way to get hard facts about this, just a huge variety of individual’s anecdotal experiences, which, given perception biases, could be either Twitch is running more ads to some viewers or on some streams OR more streamers are running ads than their viewers want to believe.
The Long and Short
Since it can’t truly be confirmed exactly what is happening, I can summarize a few points:
- Ads aren’t bad. They are a necessary part of keeping the service free for most users. If ad blockers win and too many users use them, other areas of Twitch will become more expensive.
- Too many ads can hurt the viewing experience. Regardless of if they are prompted by the system or the streamer, many people are seeing midroll ads that ruin the content for them.
- If you’re a streamer, consider how often you’re playing ads. Also, consider communicating with your stream when you choose to do so. This will help your audience not feel like the community and content are being attacked by an ad aggressive Twitch.
- If you’re Twitch, consider how often ads are being played midroll. Understand that unlike TV, ads on this platform do not pause the content. If an important moment in game play is happening and suddenly 7 ads in a row appear and last until the whole thing is over, it can really, really be a detriment to the stream. Consider the long term health of the community as a whole versus the short term increase in profits of the extra ads now.
- Twitch trying to prevent ad blockers from stopping their ad revenue is not only okay, it’s literally their job and it makes sense in all aspects. However, less people would feel the need to use an ad blocker on Twitch if the ad experience wasn’t feeling quite so intrusive. Balance is key.
Even more than normal, I’d love to see your comments on this issue. Are you getting hit by too many ads? Are you sure your streamer is/isn’t doing it? Do you care?