Credit: Tyler “Ninja” Blevins
It’s one of the most mysterious and confusing things in video gaming culture. Anytime someone from outside the world of gaming is introduced to the streaming platform Twitch 
, they have a million questions, and the perhaps the most popular is “But how do streamers make money?”
As is the case with many businesses, the answer is simple and complicated all at the same time. The concept is fairly straightforward in that gamers stream themselves playing a video game, and anyone who enjoys the content that gamer provides can choose to support them.
But a deeper look into how exactly streamers make their money can give onlookers an idea of how influencers go about their streams and turn what some would consider a hobby into a serious business opportunity.
Donations
There are a few basic features ingrained in Twitch that make it easy for viewers to support their favorite gamer financially, and the first is fairly simple. Twitch allows anyone watching a stream to directly donate to a streamer in a couple of different ways.
Credit: Herschel “Dr DisRespect” Beahm
Viewers can directly pay a streamer while watching their channel via Twitch, and there are a couple of ways that streamer choose to encourage fans to give. Each streamer’s channel has settings that allow them to give incentives for donating.
People donating can have a special customized message pop up on stream showing that they donated. Additionally, some streamers have a special text-to-speech bot that allows those who donate a designated amount to have their personal message to the streamer read out loud.
For some streamers, donations are the best way for the influencer to directly engage with his or her audience. Often times, someone might donate a large amount of money and ask a streamer if he’d be willing to play a specific game or watch and react to a YouTube link on stream. Of course streamers aren’t obligated to do so, but many influencers use it as a tool to monetize their stream.
In addition to direct donations, Twitch has a special “Cheer” mechanism that allows viewers to collect “Bits” on their accounts by either watching ads or buying them directly from Twitch. Each Bit is equal to one cent, and those can be donated to streamers as another way to tip them. Sometimes streamers will make settings to their stream that allow Bit donations to read a message to the stream or provide a notification set up by the streamer.
Credit: Jaryd “Summit1g” Lazar
Subscriptions
Subscribing to a streamer on Twitch is a little bit different from a subscription on a different platform like YouTube. Twitch subscriptions cost a base of $4.99 USD and often come with perks to the channel.
Most streaming partners have a plethora of sub-only “emotes” that are effectively emojis themed to the specific streamer. The emote could be a picture of the streamer making a goofy face or a depiction of a character from whatever game that streamer plays.
As a part of a streamer’s channel settings, they can also make it so that only subscribers can type in the streams running sidebar chat. With a sense of community being one of Twitch’s most essential aspects, having access to participate in a channel’s chat is often seen as valuable to a viewer. In the same vein, streamers frequently set up Discord servers made for their subscribers to interact during, and outside of, scheduled streams.
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Influencers get a varied profit for their subscriptions. With Twitch taking a cut of the $4.99, streamers typically take around half of the price of a subscription, but those who have larger subscription bases often are rewarded for their following on Twitch and can receive upwards of 70% of that $4.99 subscription.
Credit: Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek
Along with the basic subscription, Twitch has a partnership with Amazon that allows people who have Amazon Prime to subscribe to a Twitch channel at no extra cost. Because of the young demographic that typically watches Twitch, this quasi “free” subscription is often one that children get by connecting their parents’ Amazon Prime information to a Twitch account awarding them what’s called Twitch Prime.
Additionally, because of the “free” nature of the subscription, countless personalities shamelessly endorse Twitch Prime and tell people to use their Twitch Prime subscription on them. From the streamers’ perspective, a Twitch Prime subscription awards them the same amount of money as a normal subscription so enticing viewers to support the stream in a cost-free way is arguably the simplest way to make money.
Advertisements
Much in the way that a broadcast television program has commercials, Twitch broadcasters can play advertisements on their stream and receive an amount of money based on the number of viewers they have when the commercial is being aired.
Though streamers aren’t limited in how much they’re allowed to air advertisements, they must be careful when using this as a tool to make money. If a streamer were to abuse their ability to play commercials by airing them all the time, they could run the risk of losing viewers. After all, many people who come to Twitch are looking to escape all of the advertisements associated with mainstream media platforms and outlets.
Credit: Tim “timthetatman” Betar
Often times, a streamer will play an add during a break in their gaming. For instance, if they were in a queue for a game or if they are taking a quick restroom break, they might play an advertisement. In those sorts of situations, typically their viewers are understanding and will stay tuned in to the stream as a way to support the broadcaster.
Next Saturday The Esports Observer will expound upon this week’s feature with a separate article detailing the different ways that streamers go outside of Twitch’s basic features to monetize their channels with sponsorships.
