Twitch, a streaming network, has unveiled its new “Experiments” website, thus allowing users to see what trials it is currently working on.
The company stated that “Experiments are valuable because they help us evaluate the potential impact of a product change before we release it broadly to the community.”
When a business rolls out a new product to a “subset” of the community, it is experimenting with evaluating how it affects its experience.
The portal also stated that the list of experiments would be updated on a monthly basis.
The ability to determine which tags boost streamers’ chances of discovery, a feature that promotes viewer milestones to streams, and a new mobile chat mode, are some current experiments listed in Twitch’s post.
Participants in experiments are selected at random to prevent bias. After being chosen, people cannot withdraw from trials or be blocked from participating in investigations by the company or other users.
“There may be instances where ongoing experiments are not published on this page, and users do not see the experiment icon. This guarantees we get unbiased data and insights that reflect how community members utilize a product or feature we’re evaluating,” the business stated.
Meanwhile, social media personality and YouTuber Daniel “Keemstar”, on his Twitter handle, shared a clip of a female Twitch streamer breaking down due to the social media company’s revenue policy. While many sympathized with the streamer, others stated that Twitch “barely makes much profit”, while justifying the platform’s payout system.
In October 2022, Twitch modified its earnings structure, under which a regular subscription to the social media portal is now priced at USD 5. The revenue distribution default setting is also evenly split at 50:50 basis between the platform and streamers. The revenue share arrangement of 70:30 for certain streamers will be limited to their first USD 100,000 of subscription earnings, as per the revised policy.
After the modified revenue system got implemented, Twitch has been facing heavy criticism for its “inadequate support” towards content creators. Community members have already voiced their concerns about the negative impact that this change has had on their ability to secure a sustainable income and channel growth.