On PAX East, I heard rumors that Facebook employees were targeting Twitch channels with only ten thousand subscribers with long-term deals of up to $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Some have said that Facebook has touted imminent benefits like health (!). Other partner chains report receiving emails with similar offers in recent months. How much is it worth for a platform to go and get a reputable Twitch partner? Facebook Gaming would have a partnership policy similar to that of Twitch Affiliates: “We own what you stream here and not multicast, but feel free to stream elsewhere.” Mixer, however, seems proud not to prevent partner streamers from broadcasting on multiple platforms simultaneously, as long as Mixer`s commitment is a priority. However, if I remember correctly, Twitch is starting to heavily monitor any type of double streaming (like when you talk directly to partners to prevent them from streaming on Youtube or other platforms. The users I interviewed often talked about how much of a closely related family community is currently mixing. And how supportive and non-competitive people appear compared to Twitch`s current environment. And how hyper-attentive Mixer Partner`s support staff is, unlike the scarcity of Twitch employees with nearly 30,000 partners. (Rumors often run that new Twitch partners don`t receive a partner representative and are advised to use a priority waiting snake on the support site.) “Streamer (we call it JoeBlow) is a partner on Twitch, an independent entrepreneur who gets revenue from ads, subtitles, and advice. That`s where you have it. Disclosure may not be necessary from the state`s perspective, but informing your audience to the best of their ability, without violating NDAs or contractual agreements, is always considered more transparent. Since the exact wording of these contracts is private and there may be some differences between partnership contracts, I cannot give an example. And even though I asked several different lawyers who had checked the partnership contracts, my results are not yet complete.
I`m starting to believe that people don`t know exactly what they signed. When I asked Twitch to do this, they encouraged partners to go directly through their partner`s support with questions about contracts or terminations. In most cases, the partners who did so were able to discuss this by mutual agreement with their partner representative and arrive at a mutually agreed date in the future, at which both parties would agree to terminate the partnership, thus letting the channels follow other platforms and accept other partnerships. It`s not expressly written into the partnership agreement, but Destiny (after getting its 30-day ban and discovering that its veteran contract actually allowed it to stream on Youtube as long as it wasn`t video games) talked about its new deal, considered the “Twitch standard” and had a lot of weird clauses that aimed at exclusivity and content standards…