Charlie “MoistCr1TiKal” White criticized Twitch’s new monetization practices, slamming its new Elevated Chat function, which places a viewer’s chat at the edge of the stream.
The streaming wars between YouTube and Twitch wage on. Many big name Twitch streamers, such as Ludwig and LilyPichu, have already made the move over to YouTube, sparking concern from Twitch fans.
In an attempt to outmaneuver their competition, Twitch began testing a new monetization feature called Elevated Chat. Elevated Chat allows chatters to pay for message priority, similar to YouTube’s Super Chats. Viewers will be able to lengthen the message’s duration on screen, with five different tiers.
Charlie’s slams Twitch’s Elevated Chat
“When I started the stream, I was made aware of a new feature I didn’t opt into, and couldn’t opt out of, called Elevated Chats. Elevated Chats are their answer to YouTube streaming’s Super Chats,” he told the viewers.
“It sounds like they’re getting desperate, they’re sweating bullets,” Charlie mentioned.
The content creator brought in more context towards the monetization changes Twitch has considered implementing. Charlie believes Twitch is trying to make as much money as possible by creating new sources of revenue while not listening to what people really want on the platform.
“It’s just another revenue source for streamers that nobody really wants. People aren’t asking for more ways to monetize, they’re asking for less ads.”
Charlie then slammed the poor implementation of the new monetization function.
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“An elevated chat is a message a viewer pays for, and it can go either on top of the chat, like it does on YouTube, or beneath the streamed video, but only if you’re outside of theatre mode and not on mobile. It’s such a dumb f**king location.”
He went as far as to insult the name of the new Twitch feature:
“It’s the exact opposite of an Elevated Chat. It goes underneath the stream in most cases, so just banished to the Shadow Realm. And it’s $5 for 30 seconds, and goes up to two and a half minutes for $100. Their pricing makes no sense at all.”
Readers can check out the exact pricings here.
Though Charlie criticized the Twitch’s new Elevated Chats, the streamer’s issues aren’t necessarily with the function itself – it’s with how Twitch implemented it.
“The idea itself isn’t horrible, because Super Chats are pretty good on YouTube. They work well and are effective. But how they’ve done it on Twitch is so so so much worse that it’s laughable.”
Twitch also revealed a new function Shoutout feature, which allows streamers to highlight notable members in the chat.