Twitch’s chief monetization officer Mike Minton poked fun at YouTube ‘copying’ some key live stream features after Twitch introduced their new Hype Chat feature.
Over the last few years, there have been a few competitors to Twitch’s spot as the top livestreaming website out there. The likes of Mixer and Facebook Gaming have faltered but both YouTube and Kick are still making a good go of things.
Both websites have their similarities to Twitch – Kick especially, as it has a pretty much spot-on replica of Twitch’s layout, directory, and other features – but YouTube still feels like standard YouTube.
YouTube does, of course, also have features that are inspired by Twitch, especially as they’ve signed ex-Twitch creators over the last few years that have urged to go that way. But, it sometimes works the other way too.
Twitch exec responds to ex-YouTube exec over Hype Chat addition
So, when Twitch unveiled their new Hype Chat feature – which allows users to donate and get added attention on their chat messages – it instantly drew comparisons with YouTube’s Super Chat feature.
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In fact, former head of Gaming at YouTube Ryan ‘Fwiz’ Wyatt made a point of it. “I’ve seen this product somewhere before…,” Fwiz said, with a laughing emoji attached.
However, Twitch’s chief monetization officer Mike Minton quickly fired back. “Funny, I had the same reaction to gift subs, clips, raids, sub-only chat, polls on YT Live…,” he tweeted in response.
Funny, I had the same reaction to gift subs, clips, raids, sub-only chat, polls on YT Live…
— Mike Minton (@MikeMinton) June 22, 2023
Fwiz noted the exchange was “all in good fun,” but there are still plenty of users who can’t help but dish out the copying accusation. Though, there are many annoyed that Twitch hasn’t followed YouTube in allowing streamers to take 100% of the money from Hype Chat.
Instead, Twitch will give streamers 50% of what is donated, and it’s only increased frustration following the recent controversies in regard to branded content changes and the catch on allowing streamers to have 70/30 splits on sub revenue.