"Stop taking half of my income": Community divided as Twitch announces sponsorship experiments, including Sponsored Gift Sub and Sub Discounts

Twitch has announced that it will conduct various "sponsorship experiments" in the coming weeks as it tries to integrate sponsored content into streams in various ways.

The Twitch Support Twitter handle posted a long thread listing all the new features slated to be tested out in a bid to "fuel streamer earnings." These features include Sponsored Gift Subs, which will allow brands to gift subscriptions to viewers in Chat.

However, the thread has elicited a plethora of negative reactions from the community, as many criticized the subscription-based features due to the controversial 50/50 revenue split.

Some Twitter users even accused the Amazon-owned streaming platform of trying to find new ways to increase the cut from their creators' pay:

"Could you start testing a way to stop taking half of my income instead?"

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"Why would I give you 50% sponsorship money?": Twitter split on Twitch's new sponsorship experiments

The recent CEO shuffle at Twitch was a point of interest in the streaming community. Some hoped for a change in the platform's recent policies, which are unpopular among streamers and viewers. However, Dan Clancy has maintained a pro 50/50 subscription split stance since stepping up to the CEO role a few weeks ago.

Coming to the sponsorship experiments, the overwhelming majority of reactions under the Twitch Support Twitter thread are negative. Many see these experiments as an attempt to barge into the streamers' sponsorship contracts.

Steven Spohn, a partnered streamer on the platform, wrote:

"Why would I want to give you 50% of my sponsorship money?"

For context, let's take a brief look at the features proposed by the purple platform.

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What features are coming as part of Twitch's sponsorship experiments?

Here are all the features coming to Twitch as part of its sponsorship experiments, per the platform's official blog:

1. Sponsored Gift Subs: As mentioned before, this feature will allow brands to gift subscriptions to the viewers as a form of payment by increasing sub count.
2. Sub Codes: Similar to Gift Subs, this option will allow brands to prepay for gifted subscriptions to the viewers.
3. Sponsored Sub Discounts: Much like the SUBtember discounts, this feature will allow brands to give discounts to viewers who subscribe during the sponsored stream.
4. Channel Skins: Branded graphics that will adorn the stream and streamer's page with hyperlinks to sponsored content.
5. Streamer-read Ads: The traditional way streamers disseminate information with readouts about the brand.

Note: These experiments have nothing to do with the Bounty Board (until the testing period is over).

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The problem and the reason for the backlash

A cursory look at the first three new features on the list above shows that Twitch is trying to integrate brand sponsorships into the pre-existing subscription model. It wants to do this by incentivizing people to subscribe to a streamer's channels via discounts or codes.

This means the streamer's income from sponsorships would get tied to subscriptions. This is highly contentious, considering the huge controversy surrounding the 50/50 subscription split, where Twitch gets to take half of the revenue generated from any subscription to a creator.

This is why the community is divided on the new sponsorship experiments. However, some have pointed out that this does not mean sponsorship deals as they exist now are going away:

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More reactions from Twitter

Here are some more reactions to the new sponsorship experiments:

In the aftermath of the controversial 50/50 subscription split, other platforms like YouTube Gaming and Kick have gained the upper hand. Kick's lucrative revenue policies, in particular, have attracted a lot of streamers in recent weeks.