Have you ever considered live streaming on Twitch as a side income?
For those of you who don’t know what Twitch is, it is a live streaming service which focuses on video game live streaming such as normal people gaming or even Esports competitions. In the more recent years, people have been using the platform more as they expanded into music broadcasting, creative content and also “In real life” or IRL streams.
Most of the time, people will need to become a Twitch affiliate to get paid. To be eligible for this, you’ll need the following:
1) Have at least 500 total minutes broadcast in the last 30 days.
2) Have at least 7 unique broadcast days in the last 30 days.
3) Have an average of 3 concurrent viewers or more over the last 30 days.
3) Have at least 50 followers.
As a Twitch affiliate, you can earn revenue from Subscribers, Ads and also Bits.
But recently, many Twitch streamers have not been getting a consistent pay due to the mass volume of streamers there is on the platform.
Twitch addressing the issue
On a good note, the platform has a solution to this and that’s to implement a new initiative which could alleviate the biggest concern of unreliable income.
The Ad Incentive Program or AIP, is a new programme that will help pay select streamers a guaranteed monthly minimum amount of ad revenue. Only qualified affiliate or partner streamers will receive a notification from Twitch about them offering different pay-outs based on the number of ads run per hour and total hours streamed.
For example, if a content creator streamed for at least 40 hours that month, they could receive $100 (~RM420.30) for running two-minute ads per hour, $300 (~RM1,260.90) for three minutes or $500 (~RM2,101.50).
Additionally, the API also comes with an ad management feature which controls when ads are played during a stream alleviating the burden of streamers themselves to time ad breaks.
Twitch says that the amount offered to creators is a creator-to-creator basis and there will be no cap on potential earned income as additional revenue can be earned if creators stream beyond their required minimum hours.
So, a TLDR, this API is essentially a universal basic income programme for streamers as many content creators out there all suffer issues with unreliable income. Previously, most content creators gained income based off donations from viewers and also subscriptions which can fluctuate from month to month which created a precarious environment for others to solely depend on that income only.
Twitch says that having a reliable floor of ad revenue should help streamers plan for their future no matter what it looks like.
Finally, something pretty decent for streamers out there.
How much do streamers really get paid if you make it big time?
For those who didn’t know, if you really do make it big on Twitch, you can really earn some big cash. Example, look at Felix Lengyel AKA xQc who is a former professional Overwatch player for Dallas Fuel.
He had a total of 10 million followers on Twitch and has a total of 493 million views on the app. In average, he gets 33,350 viewers a stream and his chat is constantly flooded with fans and to some extent, you can’t even keep up with it.
During the rise of the popular game Among Us and Fall Guys, his viewership went from 20,000 to 50,000 views.
The man literally tried to reverse a car IRL when he was playing a game.
Watch on TikTok
Currently, he is the most subscribed channel on the platform, and he also netted $8,454,427 (~RM35,572,001.60) off the platform since 2018.
Hard to believe that many years ago, people thought that gaming and streaming can’t be a career and you’ll never make money out of it. Oh, how the tables have turned.
Would you consider streaming games in the future if this really does help out? Let us know in the comments!
*Sources: Visual and Reference Credits to Social Media, The Verge, Twitch Tracker & various cross references for context.
FOMO much? Follow our Facebook and Instagram for more updates.