Twitch's new stream "Boost" feature raises concern for smaller channels

Twitch is rolling out a new feature for eligible channels called “Boost this stream,” with the hopes of giving people an avenue to be featured on “highly visible parts” of the platform. However, there are concerns it’ll be damaging for the smaller streams trying to get noticed.

The new Community Challenge requires viewers to pool their Channel Points to unlock the reward. Streamers will get notified once the challenge is available on their channel, then will relay that to their community to start chipping away at the progress bar.

But there are concerns about its application. It’ll be on Twitch’s discretion for who gets to run the promotion as well as the target number to hit before a channel can be successfully Boosted.

The only hard number guideline with ‘Boost this stream’ is the 2,000 point limit that each user can contribute per day. Since individual streamers don’t know what their Boost target will be, some suggest this will be an easy feature to exploit.

A Boost places a stream in highly visible parts of Twitch so more people can discover awesome, up-and-coming streamers supported by their community. The Boost challenge isn't always available, so be on the lookout for a notification in chat, or check the Channel Points Store!

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) December 2, 2020

“How is not going to be abused by larger streams with more viewers, and therefore a bigger pool?” one person wrote. “IMO channel points devoted for use with a Community Challenge should be weighted in value depending on viewership.”

Twitch responded saying “the amount of Channel Points required to successfully boost a stream is scaled with the size and viewership of the channel,” though a clear metric of how the cap increases wasn’t made available.

Another issue raised was the way Twitch would consider someone to be a ‘small streamer,’ seeing as they’ll be the likely candidates to receive the chance to get Boosted.

or..OR…,you could maybe feature smaller streamers better by bumping them up the front page higher#SupportSmallStreamers pic.twitter.com/DBvOK5gEAO

— Johnny Chase (@JohnnyLChase) December 2, 2020

Interesting update! But what happens when everyone claims this challenge at the same time in regards to the recommended channel spot?

Also, this would probably make a lot of streamers want to remove other channel point rewards so more can contribute to this one instead?

— Victor ☕️ (@AlsoaTV) December 2, 2020

So my viewers have to choose between helping my channel grow and using their channel points for fun?

I get that it’s collaborative but this will put people off using it if they’re saving points for a big redemption, or if they want to use regular smaller redemptions.

— Hollis the Satisfactory (@TheWizardHollis) December 2, 2020

If it’s going by viewer count, then small streamers can be anything from 2-10 average viewers to 100-2000 live watchers per session. If it’s going by follower count or subscriber count, then that has its own implications as well.

But Boost is a wholly experimental feature that has a lot of variables still being workshopped. For example, in the FAQ, Twitch says that everything from what’s considered as a high visibility part of the site to who the feature is available as it rolls out could change.

As the company gets this feature into more users’ hands, expect Twitch to make adjustments depending on how Boost gets received throughout December.

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