Twitch has announced that it is bringing stories to the site, with the feature heavily resembling Snapchat's offering of the same concept. In the midst of creators like xQc and Pokimane debating Twitch's competitor Kick, it shouldn't be forgotten that Twitch is making moves of its own.
For the first time in a while, it finally feels as though Twitch has a real competitor in the streaming market. While others like Mixer have tried and failed in the past, the swift rise of Kick has seen Twitch need to up its game in order to stay on top. Just recently, Kick signed Destiny to the platform, and it seems like there's a lot of money being spent to ensure it sticks around. With the announcement of stories for Twitch, hopefully it's a sign that this competition will be a huge driver of innovation for video game streaming.
The reveal of stories for Twitch was announced during a panel at TwitchCon Paris, and it was accompanied by a video showing them in action. Streamers can post these stories to all of their followers, or make them exclusive to subscribers only. It's certainly easy to see the value in such a feature - if a streamer has an important announcement to make, doing it on a third-party site such as Twitter could mean that some followers miss it. Now, these announcements can be made directly on the site, ensuring that they can reliably communicate with all of their followers in just a single click.
Functionally, it seems as though these Twitch stories will function exactly the same as the Snapchat equivalent, with streamers able to post photos and videos directly that will expire after 24 hours. The same feature also exists on both Facebook and Instagram, however all of these are traditional social media sites. While stories aren't a unique feature, it will definitely be interesting to see how Twitch integrates them into a streaming site instead.
This is a welcome change of pace since every other day now, it seems as though Twitch is filled with drama related to some of its biggest content creators. Just recently, Twitch banned Kaceytron for violating its policies, but she's definitely not the only one. It's actually refreshing to hear some positive news about Twitch and the site making strides forward to improve the viewer and creator experience. The site hired new CEO Dan Clancy back in March, and gamers were understandably curious to see the direction the site would take. Hopefully, this is the sort of news that continues to emerge from Twitch as opposed to more controversy.