Limited run for now

Twitch is rolling out a new elevated chat feature, similar to a popular streaming option offered by YouTube. Only a certain number of channels will be able to offer the new feature and it will only be available for a limited time, as Twitch wants to evaluate if it would be a worth making permanent.

will run the experiment for four weeks, beginning at the end of September

The Amazon-owned streaming platform will run the experiment for four weeks, beginning at the end of September. There will be no elevated chat option when viewing streams on mobile devices.

Five different tiers

The idea behind an elevated chat is that stream viewers will be able to make a payment in order to give their message priority in the stream chat. There are five different tiers for the chat duration. The shortest duration will be 30 seconds and will cost $5, while the longest will be 2.5 minutes at a price of $100.

Multiple viewers will be able to send an elevated chat message at the same time. In these situations, there will be a message queue managed by the chat moderators and the streamer. Content creators will get a 70% cut of the elevated chat payments after fees and taxes.

Plenty of change

Twitch may tweak the elevated messages offering throughout the testing period to see what configurations work better. Two different positions for the elevated messages will be tested: at the top of the chat and at the bottom of the video player.

banned streams of unregulated online casino gameplay

There have been a number of notable controversies involving Twitch’s platform in recent months, including a push by many creators to increase the current 50/50 revenue split to the 70/30 that YouTube offers. The streaming giant also banned streams of unregulated online casino gameplay after concerns about the impact of these types of streams, particularly on young and at-risk viewers.

The ban will officially take effect on October 18. Gambling-related streams have become very popular on the platform, with top gambling streamers often betting millions of dollars during a single session. ?