“Boost” feature raises concern for smaller channels

The Amazon owned gaming platform Twitch has been even more popular due to the boredom created by the pandemic. Many have decided to create a channel and become streamers. Twitch has found a new way to introduce small channels on the platform by giving them a chance to be featured on the highly visible parts of the platform.

It was what they called ‘Boost this Stream’. Boost this stream is a new Community Challenge where viewers can pool Channel Points to unlock a boost reward. The boost reward promotes your stream to highly visible parts of Twitch. The promotion can help more viewers discover you, your community, and your content. It will appear to viewers in chat, and viewers can contribute Channel Points to unlock. However, there are also some concerns that it will be damaging for the smaller streams that are trying to get noticed. Some users are posting out their concerns on their social media accounts.

One user stated; “How is it not going to be abused by larger streams with more viewers, and therefore gain a bigger pool? IMO channel points devoted for use with a Community Challenge should be weighted in value depending on viewership.” But then Twitch responded and explained; “The amount of Channel Points required to successfully boost a stream is scaled with the size and viewership of the channel”.