Twitch’s ‘Cheering’ Platform Lets You Tip Streamers

Twitch has introduced its new “Cheering” platform which enables viewers to financially tip their favorite streamers. Instead of sending them actual money, viewers will have to purchase animated emotes from Twitch and the emotes are then sent to streamers who can cash them out and pocket the tips. Twitch calls these animated emotes “bits,” and they can be used in a variety of ways on the platform.

Users will be able to purchase bits in packages and it’s up to them if they want to award a streamer an entire package or send them emotes individually throughout the course of the stream.

Since they are animated, the more emotes a users sends at one time, the cooler the emote becomes. A bits package costs $1.40 and it contains 100 emotes, users will be allowed to send up to 10,000 emotes at one time.

Bits add a layer of interaction between the viewer and the streamer. Viewers can show their support for the content by simply awarding bits throughout the stream so streamers can know that people appreciate the content they are putting out and are willing to tip them for it.

It’s already possible for streamers to get tips via PayPal so naturally some have been concerned about the conflict between that and this new platform, because bits can only be payed for using Amazon’s Payment system, which isn’t surprising since Amazon owns Twitch.

Twitch hasn’t revealed how big of a cut it’s going to take from bits that are sent as tips to streamers.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Twitch