Streamers Fight Back At Twitch’s New Ad Policy In The Best Way


Twitch users are protesting the streaming site’s new ad plans by blocking them completely.

The company announced the changes to Twitch Prime yesterday, saying: “As we have continued to add value to Twitch Prime, we have also re-evaluated some of the existing Twitch Prime benefits,

“Advertising is an important source of support for the creators who make Twitch possible. This change will strengthen and expand that advertising opportunity for creators so they can get more support from their viewers for doing what they love. We want Twitch to remain a place where anyone can enjoy one-of-a-kind interactive entertainment, and ads allow us to continue making Twitch the best place for creators to build communities around the things they love and make money doing it.”

Twitch announced ad-free viewing streaming via Twitch Prime back in 2016.

At the same time, Amazon also announced that Prime members will no longer get 20% discounts off pre-ordered new game releases. They said: “Prime members will now get a $10 Amazon promotional credit when pre-ordering select games” from April 28.

 

Speaking on Twitter, Justin Wong, former Twitch VP, said: “Partners don’t see any direct benefit from the Twitch Prime ad-free removal. There are possibly indirect benefits depending on whether viewers will subscribe to avoid ads. In other words, the ‘benefiting creators’ shtick is BS.”

 

Some streamers have been encouraging viewers to block the ads.

Robert Moran said: “Please install an ad blocker if you watch my content on Twitch/YouTube because ads are a waste of your time, and I have no interest building a business off ad dollars.”

Another streamer, lateyourpie, said: “This announcement is such a loss for ALL streamers,

“It’s not even about the ad revenue, more people are going to drop Prime, meaning less Prime [subscriptions]. Twitch trying to spin this as a win for the streamer is laughable.”

A third added: “First time in a long time where Twitch announced something, and I was like ‘oh shit, this is gonna cost me money.’”