Twitch Streamers Furious Over New Ad Changes

Popular Twitch streamers are outraged after the platform announced a new advertising policy that severely limits the earnings of both big and small streamers.

Streamer Zach Bassey screenshots the updated policy and tweeted it on Tuesday. The policy change has since become the biggest news in the gaming world, with streamers on the site expressing frustration over the restrictions on the types of ads they can place in their videos.

Under the new policy, the sponsoring company’s logo can occupy only 3% of the screen, banner ads are no longer allowed, and “burned-in” video and audio ads are prohibited.

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A burned-in ad is a piece of video or audio that is taken from another source and placed on a stream. Streamers will still be able to talk and unbox Sponsored Products.

The reaction was overwhelmingly negative, with many popular streamers calling for a boycott of the popular game-streaming platform, while others announced they would leave the platform if the changes were made.

“The only reason Twitch is doing this is to monetize, monopolize and leverage smaller streamers,” Zach Hoyt said in a video response.

Live events hosted on Twitch, such as tournaments for popular games, will also be severely restricted. Many of these events, such as the popular Games Done Quick, will have to make significant changes to their fundraising strategies to stay on Twitch.

Streamers rely almost exclusively on sponsorships to make their payments.

Twitch allows streamers to collect donations from their fans, but only very large streamers can make a living from donations alone.

Twitch apologized for the confusion following the announcement, but essentially reiterated its purpose in response to the outrage.

“We wanted to clarify our existing advertising policy aimed at prohibiting third-party ad networks from selling burned-in videos and display ads on Twitch,” the company said in a statement.

“Thank you for sharing your concerns and for your feedback. We will notify the community when we update the language,” Twitch said.