TwitchCon may be over, but it has left a wave of significant changes in the live-streaming landscape. Let’s break down the most important updates, from improvements in broadcasting and content moderation to collaboration tools and mobile app enhancements.

Enhanced Broadcasting Options

Twitch is planning to improve the quality of its streams, upgrading from 1080p to 1440p with an ‘enhanced bitrate’ option, which will gradually roll out over the next year. This improvement will be welcomed by both streamers and viewers, offering higher quality with less strain on streamers' equipment. This change may also signal Twitch's move towards enabling AV1 encoding, which promises better quality while reducing costs for Twitch and technical challenges for creators.

Additionally, Twitch announced the introduction of vertical video streaming. While this feature is popular on platforms like TikTok and YouTube, the Twitch community remains divided. Gaming creators may not fully embrace it, but it will likely benefit creators in niches like fitness, cooking, and IRL (In Real Life) streaming.

Shared Chat for Collaborative Streams

Twitch is enhancing community collaboration by introducing a ‘Shared Chat’ feature for collaborative streams. Previously, when multiple streamers co-hosted content, each had their own separate chat, which diluted the sense of community. The new feature allows streamers to merge their chats into one, fostering better viewer engagement and making collaborative streams feel more cohesive and interactive.

Strike System Transparency

Moderation policies on Twitch have often sparked controversy, especially when it comes to enforcing community guidelines. High-profile cases like Dr. Disrespect’s ban have led to widespread speculation due to a lack of transparency.

To address this, Twitch announced a more transparent strike system, giving creators clearer information about why they received a strike and how long any resulting penalties will last. This update will provide creators with a better understanding of what they violated and offer more precise guidance on how to avoid similar infractions in the future. For viewers, this system will make Twitch’s enforcement process more understandable and consistent.

Mobile App Upgrades for Enhanced Discoverability

Recognizing the growing number of mobile users, Twitch is focusing on improving the mobile app. One of the biggest complaints from creators has been the difficulty of being discovered on mobile compared to desktop. To fix this, Twitch is rolling out several enhancements, including a new ‘following’ tab, akin to YouTube's ‘Subscriptions’ page, better autoplay functions, Picture-in-Picture (PIP) size adjustments, VOD timestamp memory, thumbnails for followed channels, and an improved ‘Clip Carousel’ to help users discover new creators.

These upgrades aim to help smaller streamers gain more visibility and attract more viewers, a critical issue with the current algorithm favoring top streamers.

Creator Clubs and Guilds Improvements

Twitch also revealed updates to Creator Clubs and Guilds, introducing four new clubs for Artists/Makers, Music, VTubers, and Coworking/Coding creators. Although these are relatively new features, they’ve already proven to be popular among streamers, providing them with more avenues to collaborate and engage with like-minded creators.

Conclusion

TwitchCon 2024 in San Diego brought numerous announcements that will shape the future of the platform. From higher quality broadcasting and collaborative chat features to a more transparent strike system and mobile app upgrades, Twitch is making efforts to stay ahead in the competitive live-streaming industry. However, with YouTube already offering many similar features, it remains to be seen how well Twitch will compete and whether its community-driven approach will be enough to maintain its position in the market.

Twitch has announced updates to its strike and ban policies, responding to frequent requests from streamers and viewers for more transparency in the process.

Avoiding bans and strikes on Twitch can be challenging. Ideally, following the platform's rules should suffice, but many streamers have experienced confusion when receiving bans without clear reasons. Typically, Twitch notifies them of a violation but doesn’t explain what specifically triggered the strike, making it difficult for streamers to prevent future issues.

At TwitchCon, the company revealed plans to address this by making the process more transparent for both streamers and viewers. Moving forward, when someone breaks the rules in chat, they’ll receive a detailed notification via email and the appeals portal, including a snippet showing exactly where the violation occurred. In the future, this same approach will apply to video streams, with streamers receiving a clip of the moment they broke the rules, giving them a clearer understanding of what led to the ban. Both types of strikes will also allow for an appeal process.

Twitch's Strike System Overhaul

In addition to being more transparent about violations, Twitch is also revising how strikes are handled. Previously, long-term streamers risked account bans due to accumulating minor infractions, as strikes remained on their records indefinitely. Under the new system, Twitch will allow strikes to expire after a certain period, rewarding streamers who maintain good behavior. However, suspensions will still be enforced for more severe rule-breaking.

The new strike expiration policy is set to roll out in early 2025. While Twitch hasn’t specified when the clip-based violation notifications for both chat and video streams will be introduced, it's expected to arrive sometime in 2024. These updates aim to reduce the number of strikes and improve the overall experience for streamers and viewers alike.