Why Twitch Needs A Competitor | Hacker News Reader

Why Twitch Needs A Competitor

businessinsider.com

36 pointsssclafani43 comments

While I agree with the sentiment, the current "competitors" that have shown up are either equally twitchy about TOS violations [1], have abysmally poor performance in many areas of the world (again I'm referring to ustream.tv), or are basically scams[2].

They've also been pretty good about talking to people about their TOS violations and reverting bans if necessary [3].

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/04/tech/web/hugo-awards-gaiman-us... [2] http://www.destiny.gg/n/own3d-tv-a-beginners-guide-to-being-... [3] http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/1bqum7/just... *

* Random link I found by looking for twitch.tv restoring accounts. I know there have ones where it wasn't twitch.tv's fault including recently a DOTA 2/SC2 caster, I just can't remember where he posted his stuff.

> have abysmally poor performance in many areas of the world

Twitch in europe still sometimes have horrible performance too. I don't know if this is a peering issue to french ISP or something, but every major tournament I watch I have to use 240p at some point or another because it lags like hell. And everytime you mention it being in their chat or reddit, you get a swarm of users telling you "no it works for me", "it's probably your bandwidth", ...

I was sad when own3d closed because they always had great performance for me, some people said "but they suck in country X" but hey, that's exactly like twitch for me.

Worst part is, I would glady have suscribed to tons of "720p for paying users only" starcraft 2 content if it was working.

Yeah, this is rough for us. We want perfect global service and don't have it. There are issues in many locales, mostly because of last-mile delivery.

We're doubling EU capacity now, because every time we add capacity we grow until it's all used up. Which is no compensation to you, I realize, but that's what's going on.

(I'm the CEO of Twitch)

This is off topic, but do you think a competitor for Twitch TV would be good for the industry as a whole and grow the market in terms of professional video gamers and tournaments beyond what Twitch could do alone?

No business really wants a competitor. And I think we're working pretty hard to grow the industry regardless.

However, I recognize long term what's good for the world in general is competition, so all I have to say is: bring it on :-)

Well yeah, I get the whole 240p on twitch (I'm a little bit better - like 480p or something). I'm talking about how when I would be in the US or Korea even the lowest bitrate option refused to play past slideshow speed. It's also the only one my friends in other countries actively complain to me about (since I'm the "computer guy" for them).

And yeah own3d had nice performance but it's understandably simpler to get good performance when you're not paying any of your contracts.

As for your last comment, I've gone back to GOM since their video quality has gotten better over time.

In relation to the article, yes it would be great if either Twitch beefed up their performance and had a clear way to contest ToS violations, but there have been quite a few competitors to Twitch and all of them have given me far more reasons to actively distrust them than to trust them over Twitch. I don't stream video games but if I did I couldn't see myself on any competitor right now.

Maybe Google could try their hand at something like that? They obviously can do live streaming decently well (although Youtube's speed has decreased for me greatly in the last few months).

The story behind [3]: http://blog.twitch.tv/2013/04/regarding-todays-assorted-inci...

I think we should take a step back for a second and remember that before Twitch it was largely impossible to turn video game skills into a paying career. Now many top players are able to finance their lives while still concentrating on their game. There are of course kinks that need to be worked out, but now you at least have one option, before you had zero.

There were other services before twitch. Before it was shut down, Own3d tv provided a decent income for a few streamers.

The thing with Own3d was that for the most part its streaming service simply did not match that of Twitch. The layout and mobile support was a bit better (streams that used Own3d were far more convenient to access since they played from the browser), but the quality was lacking. Twitch, on the other hand, has focused on what matters: the stream quality. Now that there layout has been updated, they would have smoked own3d even more IMO.

Many streamers moved from Own3D to Twitch because Own3D was not making good on owed payments. Twitch needs competition to force it to improve its ToS, but it's been good for gaming.

Prior to the existence of Twitch there were at least a couple thousand people playing video games professionally. Most of these players played FPS, RTS, or MOBA (not that the term existed at the time) games competitively. I believe they still do, and that they are still not dependent on Twitch for their income.

It's my understanding that the income of top professional players in some segments (fighting games, for example) has largely shifted to non-prize sources in the past few years. Being a top player will get you sponsorships and notoriety which can be leveraged into other projects like online shows, consulting jobs, etc. Sponsorships at minimum include travel expenses, but often will pay for full-time living expenses.

Twitch is a not-insignificant part of it, along with youtube etc. The companies that sponsor players use the hype to get eyeballs on their own sponsors' ads.

I am sorry to admit I don't have any sources for this information. It's mostly hearsay, so take it with a grain of salt.

The point is that it existed before Twitch. It might even be argued that the switch you speak of occurred because of Twitch.

Don't forget that in the early days, there were professional gamers but live-streaming was unknown. Players made money by winning tournaments and getting sponsors. The article mentions that. There weren't zero options before twitch - own3d was already mentioned - and there are options besides live-streaming.

Are there any publications regarding how much money Twitch streamers make?

I imagine actual regular casters of top eSports, like LoL and SC2, are making much more money than some dude streaming World of Warcraft.

Towelliee makes around 7-8k/month according to an AMA he did a few month ago and it has quite a bit of insight there.

He's shown that you don't have to be top gamer skill wise to make a lot of money. He's decent at games, but he isn't any sort of 'Pro' at any sort of game he plays:

http://www.reddit.com/comments/tufo9/i_am_a_twitchtv_partner...

http://www.twitch.tv/towelliee

Destiny, who is a very controversial streamer, (and probably doesn't make this much anymore) said he made about 3.5k/month from streaming 1.5k for lessons. He was a pretty heavy streamer with lots of viewers. This was 2 years ago though so the numbers may have changed.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/g7q91/iam_destiny_i_qu...

He makes a lot more now, especially since he went to LoL and gets even more viewers. You can get somewhat of an idea as to how the system works from this post: http://www.destiny.gg/n/own3d-tv-a-beginners-guide-to-being-...

His contract with Twitch is NOT the same, of course, but it's similar, especially on value. These streamers also make money from donations, so keep that in mind. I've heard that some donations were as high as 10k, which is insane. Not all streamers get that much. I've also heard that one popular streamer showed his Paypal account on stream and had upwards of 90k. Speculation, I know, but I don't think it's far fetched. You can also go on certain streams and read off the donations that they post, add it up, and extrapolate to a month's salary. Just from donations!

The LoL streamers earn A LOT of money from streaming. A team may get 30K viewers PER MEMBER. TSM did this for a while. Their members would barely focus on team practice, they'd stream most of the day to upwards of 20k+ viewers. TSM also does an online invitational tournament which also gets a ton of viewers.

Simply put, the market is growing and a lot of that growth is coming from Twitch. They have a ton of power now and it's scary. Sure, if Twitch went away, e-Sports would still be around because that part of the industry is built around tournament and sponsorship money. What would happen, though, is a lot of people would lose their jobs and e-Sports would be destabilized for quite a while. Not that Twitch will go away suddenly, but they have way too much power and I would not be surprised if they started abusing it even more.

Twitch has an agenda now. Talk to any Admin and you'll know this. Their agenda is to appear professional. Thus, anything deemed unprofessional is going to get you in trouble. This means, essentially, that any non-gaming content is barred completely. Streamers will usually take breaks from their games (they play for 6+ hours in one sitting) by watching stuff on stream or just talking and relaxing with the viewers. This is NOT allowed, technically. Some streamers get away with it but I've seen others get reprimanded in the chat for not showing gaming content. It's only going to get worse.

At about that same time, members of Counter Logic Gaming were claiming to make 5-6k a month each streaming, and that they actually lost money going to tournaments and winning them, if they had just put in a normal amount of time streaming over those weekends.

Although winning tournaments might make their stream more popular?

In the short term, no- however, it does keep them relevant as time goes on. most of the reason they said they did it, was because they just couldn't be that interested in the game if not playing at that level.

Hard to know without (1) longitudinal data and (2) surveying samples of their viewers. Your idea is highly plausible, IMO, but only that.

Live streaming of games. Many people are making hundreds of thousands / millions of dollars without Twitch, using Youtube.

While competition is always good, this piece seems rather one sided, where's Twitch's comments? It sounds like someone got banned from Twitch for doing something wrong.

Some examples I've seen lately:

-twitch streamer pretending to be paralyzed asking for donations and getting his account banned when he was caught walking on his stream.

-twitch user asking his viewers to DDoS someone he thinks is trying to DDoS him.

-various twitch users showing porn on their streams.

All of these users have gotten banned while the one asking for a DDoS got a one month ban.

Twitch is definitely doing something right. Non-mainstream sports should definitely see what Twitch has done with the gaming world and try to do the same with their perspective sports. ESPN does a great job covering the mainstream sports, and they have yet to capture the secondary sports market. Seems like an opportunity for someone to do.

Are there any similar services with terms that don't allow arbitrary termination?

check out gxstream

Hi All, this is a conversation near and dear to my heart, as we've been working on building a Twitch competitor for nearly two years. We're very close to having a finished product, but as we've all seen with Own3d (and many other video platforms over the years); it's take a fair amount of capital to actually launch and sustain a viable business in this space.

We've thought long and hard about bootstrap launching, but we've decided that route simply doesn't allow us to offer the level of service we think you deserve.

To those who think that game streaming is a goldmine of cash, I can confidently say to you that it is not. It's a high-volume, low margin business at this point. There are a few who make some cash.

But most of that is a loss leader for another product. Like Riot Games - think their eSports division makes any net profit? Or do you think it's mostly an advertisement that drives players to LOL?

There IS opportunity here, and an opportunity that can be good for many, as opposed to the few, but it takes a lot more than just throwing up a pre-roll video ad in front of your livestream.

That's one reason we're working on some really innovative ways to help engage audiences and leverage expanded types of business models with your channels.

At any rate, happy to dive into the conversation further if anyone is interested.

We've also launched an online petition to help us get the attention of other venture cap and private equity investors; since this has been part of our battle for the last year.

If you really want to see another competitor in the space, help us prove the market to a generation of people (financiers) who do not understand game streaming at all.

http://www.change.org/petitions/vc-s-private-equity-and-ange...?

Thanks for your support!

Now if only I could live stream myself watching movies... Or coding... :)

Notch does pretty well at attracting viewers when he codes live.

own3d.tv was a good competitor and they failed to be profitable

Except for the part where own3d was a terrible entity to do business with as a streamer (routinely late on payouts, etc).

I've always wondered why YouTube doesn't push seriously into the video game and eSport streaming business.

Most streamers have YouTube channels that they advertise on Twitch. YouTube is obviously massively popular, and could possible grant more audience to eSport streamers. YouTube has streaming, but it feels like a side-project.

Putting aside the fact that articles on Business Insider are extremely sensationalized, what about Youtube or Ustream? It really wouldn't take much for Youtube to implement the rest of the features Twitch has.

This is THE thing that governments should solve.

It should be illegal for companies to refuse service to anyone or offer them worse terms that someone they never did business with.

Even more generally, it should be illegal to ban users from any service, and censor public speech in any way, even on private forums.

Wow... this is extremely anti-business. I don't think you understand that offering a service puts you in a situation of both liability and obligation. As it is, you don't technically have an obligation to do more than is provided for in your terms; however, the reality is that, in order to be successful, you need to do whatever your customers require within the sphere of services and offerings that can be expected based on your claims and advertisement.

Requiring businesses to provide their products or services to absolutely anyone -- and continue doing so even when a user has clearly violated the spirit of service or product usage (because in this scenario there would be little or no value to any kind of terms of use) -- means taking away any means any business would otherwise have of protecting its revenue stream in reasonable ways.

Freedom of speech on private forums... now you're coming across as either a troll (successful) or a kid who's gotten banned for posting too much porn/hate speech/insulting mods too many times.

Anyway, there are good reasons that governments shouldn't restrict a business' ability to choose not to do business with entities as they wish.

Are you suggesting that using a company's hosted product should be a right?

Yes, if they are offering it to the general public.

Federal case law protects the rights of people to refuse service based on protecting business interests. LegalZoom has a nice blog post on it [0]. Unruh Civil Rights Law does prevent arbitrary discrimination though.

[0]: http://www.legalzoom.com/us-law/equal-rights/right-refuse-se...

If you owned a retail store, and someone came in every day yelling and screaming and breaking things, would you say they should have the right to do so, since the store is open to the public?

Why? If you really feel strongly that this is practical and everything should be allowed, you can go ahead and offer your own Nazis-and-pedophiles-welcome streaming service. I don't see why others should have their freedom of association revoked just because of your personal whims.

I'm fairly anti-business as a rule, but this goes a bit too far for me. There does exist a right to refuse service and it is a legitimate, if very gray-area, right. There do exist multiple fora for political speech, though I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "public speech".

What you're asking for is, in my mind, a pretty clear violation of the right to assembly which includes the right to not associate.

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