Everything you need to know about Twitch
Why do you keep hearing about Twitch in poker, and why should you care?
What is Twitch?
Twitch.tv is a social network and live streaming site for gamers. Millions of gaming fans visit it every day to watch other gamers broadcast as they play their favourite games. While they are playing they interact with their viewers via a chatbox.
In November of last year Twitch opened it’s doors to poker and notable players like Randy Lew, Jason Somerville and ElkY all regularly stream on Twitch. Live events like the Global Poker Masters and Unibet Open have also already developed a presence on there too.
It will look familiar to poker fans. It feels like a mix between poker training videos, poker webinars, YouTube and Facebook (but with a purple colour scheme).
Why is Twitch popular?
This was the hardest thing for me to get my head around. You really have to experience Twitch for yourself to understand why it’s so popular. It isn’t a passive form of entertainment; it’s an interactive experience.
The successful broadcasters on Twitch are not popular just because they are talented players or entertaining, it’s because they engage their audience. Even players as big as Jason Somerville are making the experience interactive for their fans.
Scot Ball from Twitch, explained this to me:
“In terms of what makes them successful I think it is the interaction, the way they interact with the chat and the way they manage it. When you have 10,000 people all trying to talk to you at the same time, and you can do that while playing, that's a pretty dang impressive.”
Why is Twitch good for poker industry?
Other than the fact that it is a genuinely fun and engaging experience to watch a Twitch broadcast, there is one reason why everyone in the industry needs to pay attention: its sheer scale.
The site gets 100 million views a month, with 1.5 million gamers broadcasting their online play. The site is so big that last year $10 million was raised for charity by game donations alone, and the site itself was bought by Amazon for $970 million.
The vast majority of this audience are not poker players, they are gamers. Young men and women who have never been exposed to poker before, but now that the poker is available on the site, they potentially could be converted to the game we know and love.
Why is it good for poker players?
There are lots of reasons why grinders should embrace Twitch. First of all the potential influx of new players should be as exciting to poker players as it is to industry professionals.
In my opinion it is also good that the world of gaming is potentially going to make its mark on poker. The influence of gaming can only make poker more fun and improve the quality of poker software.
If you have ever fancied yourself as a poker coach or professional player, Twitch offers an opportunity to make a name for yourself and make extra money. Anyone can start broadcasting on Twitch and the popular broadcasters can monetise their streams with advertising, subscriptions and even by getting donations from fans.
The broadcasters who become really popular will probably become so marketable that sponsorship is a very real possibility further down the line for the talented few. Just look at Jason Somerville, who was recently signed by PokerStars after having the most popular Twitch stream.
Right now the target audience is pretty new to poker, and as such it does not really rival poker books, sites like PokerStrategy and coaches in terms of its educational content. Twitch is less of an educational experience and more of an interactive entertainment experience.
The exact future of poker and Twitch is uncertain, and will no doubt change in ways we cannot possibly imagine. However, when you consider the sheer size of its audience being introduced to poker, it can only be a good thing for the game.
Have you been watching Twitch? What do you think of it? Let me know in the comments.
