Has it happened to you that you are watching a Twitch broadcast and want to participate, but the streamer does not respond to your message because he does not read you among so many users? For those of us who are lovers of streaming, this is a reality that we have to face very often.
However, Twitch came up with an idea to fix our problem. Twitch is already testing “Elevated chat” , which allows you to highlight your messages in chat, if you’re willing to pay. How does this new feature work?
Highlight messages for a fee, this is Twitch’s “elevated chat”
Twitch is doing an experiment with the users of some channels within its platform. What is it about? A new feature called “Elevated Chat” that allows you to pay to increase the visibility of a message for a certain amount of time .
Any user who pays any of the fees will make their message stand out above the rest in the chat. Specifically, these messages will be fixed for a certain time at the top or bottom of the chat panel , making it easier for other users (or the same streamer) to see it.
Users will pay a fee ranging from $5 to $100 (no pricing for Europe yet), depending on how long they want to star a message. By the way, you can also pay to upload messages from other users . The fees are divided as follows:
- $5 for 30 seconds of exposure.
- $10 for 1 minute of exposure.
- $25 for 1 minute and 30 seconds.
- $50 for 2 minutes.
- $100 for 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
As you will see, the price escalation is exponential , since the price difference between the last and the first level is 20 to 1; instead, the time difference between both levels is only 5 to 1.
Now, what happens if there are several users who pay at the same time to highlight their messages? The platform spoke about it and pointed out that the featured messages will enter an exposure queue . That is, all the messages will end up being displayed, but they will be displayed one by one in order of arrival.
A new “limited time” way to generate income for content creators on Twitch
One thing that Twitch was very specific about is that this new feature will only be available for a limited time and for some channels. The experiment went into effect this last week of September and will be available for only 4 weeks (until the end of October).
Earnings from this new feature will be split 70/30 , with the lion’s share going to content creators. We think this is a great incentive for streamers, especially now that many have complained that earnings on Twitch have dropped a lot due to the new policies of the platform.
Elevated messages will be managed by streamers and moderators . Once the message is active, any of them can immediately time out the message or ban the user. In case this happens, users will not receive a refund of their money and they will not be able to raise other people’s chat messages either.
For now, this new feature will be available in: United States, Germany, Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, Norway, Switzerland, South Africa and Taiwan . We do not know if Twitch will expand the test to other territories, although it would be great to see it in Spain.
