There are many ways to watch people play video games and have them watch your gaming sessions, but one of the easiest is to fire up is Twitch. Available on multiple platforms, including desktop, mobile, browser, and set-top boxes, the Amazon-owned streaming service specializes in broadcasting real-time gaming—though it offers other kinds of creative content, too. Twitch's ubiquity, ease of use, and high adoption rate make it an excellent service and an Editors’ Choice pick, despite a few issues. It's one of the best video game live streaming services, not to be confused with services that let you play video games through streaming.
Twitch Prime, Twitch Turbo, and Channel Subscriptions
Twitch is a free service that inserts ads into its streams at regular intervals. If you're an Amazon Prime or Prime Video member, your membership includes access to Twitch Prime, a premium experience that grants extended broadcast storage for broadcasters (60 days instead of 14 days), a single Twitch channel subscription (which includes ad-free viewing), exclusive emoticons, expanded chat color options, a chat badge, and a few free PC games each month. Twitch states that the games are yours to keep forever.
The Twitch Prime channel subscription is an attractive benefit, as it lets you watch, say, TeamSp00ky's FGC tournaments without Twitch inserting ad breaks into the stream. It should be noted, that this account doesn't prevent channel hosts from plugging sponsors during their broadcasts. You can only apply the Twitch Prime channel subscription to a single channel at a time; you can switch another channel every 30 days. This is a change in how Twitch handles ad-free viewing; previously, a Twitch Prime membership gave you ad-free viewing across the board. You can use ad blockers, although they take some effort if you want to block video ads instead of just banners. You’ll also live with seeing the face of the real person you just took money away from.
If you want more ad-free channels, or you don't have an Amazon Prime subscription, Twitch gives you the option to subscribe to individual channels for $4.99, $9.99, or $24.99 per month. Broadcasters set the subscription rewards, so the fun extras vary from channel to channel. You can give channel subscriptions to friends, too.
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Alternately, you can sign up for the $8.99-per-month Twitch Turbo, a subscription that serves up ad-free viewing across Twitch's many channels (you still see front page takeovers, however), extended broadcast storage, additional emoticons, custom chat username colors, priority customer service, and an exclusive chat badge.
In addition, Twitch lets you Follow channels if you create an account. Following channels doesn't give you subscription benefits, but it places those streams into a column on the left side of the interface that alerts you when a streamer begins broadcasting.
Twitch also lets you buy Bits, a virtual currency that you use to purchase emotes to drop into chats. Pricing starts at $1.40 for 100 Bits, and broadcasters get a cut of viewers' purchases. This is yet another way for viewers to support their favorite streamers.
Twitch Platforms
Twitch has become the de facto streaming service for gamers, as it's nearly everywhere, as mentioned earlier. Twitch has Mac and Windows desktop apps; Android and iOS mobile apps; and PlayStation and Xbox console apps. You can find Twitch apps for Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Nvidia Shield, too. That said, you won't officially find Twitch on Roku devices. You can download unofficial apps instead, but their support is much less reliable.
Caffeine, a rival streaming service Twitch occasionally partners with for broader entertainment events, is only available on the web or mobile devices. Facebook Gaming currently only supports Android devices, along with being a part of Facebook’s desktop site.
Discovering Streams
The Twitch home screen has evolved a lot over the years. In the past, certain popular games, such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, dominated the Discover section, creating an element of sameness to a section that should have been about content discovery.
Twitch now does a better job of highlighting a wider variety of games and genres; it now also features Fortnite, Overwatch, PUBG, and Valorant. Additionally, you can view a full list of all live shows, explore games by genre, key a term into the search box, or check out clipped highlights of users' cool gaming moments. There's a lot of Twitch content, but it's pretty easy to find something of interest.
Non-gaming streams also receive more love. Search the Creative and IRL (In Real Life) tags to find everything from cooking shows to ASMR videos to beauty tips to people just chatting. Sports fans can enjoy NWHL, NWSL, and Thursday Night NFL games. Even major politicians stream on Twitch these days.
Channels and Video Resolution
Whether it’s fighting games, chess competitions, esports, or the dedicated Bob Ross channel, you may end up watching Twitch more often than Netflix. Fortunately, Twitch streams are quite reliable; video issues are rare. It helps that Twitch auto-adjusts the stream to match your internet connection speed, but you can manually adjust the bit rate, too. For example, TrU3Ta1ent's Mortal Kombat 11 stream let viewers tweak the video setting from 720p/60 frames per second all the way down to 160p. We'd hate to think what a 160p stream looks like on a high-resolution display, but at least the option's there for those times when your internet connection drops the ball. Unlike YouTube, you can’t stream in 4K.
Twitch's Features and Options
Twitch is ripe with features for viewing, interacting, and streaming. This isn’t all of them, just a few of note.
Squad Stream lets up to four Twitch streamers go live and broadcast together in one window. The benefit? As a viewer, you get more angles on the action, a way to discover new streams, and the ability to chat with multiple Twitch communities at once. It's a terrific way to expand how you use Twitch.
Clip is a feature that Twitch has had for a while now, but it's still pretty cool. It's designed to let you record hype moments by grabbing the video from about 25 seconds before and five seconds after you click the Clip button. A trimming tool is included to help you edit the captured video a bit.
If you want to minimize the distractions, activate either the Theater Mode or Full Screen Mode via icons in the bottom-right corner of the video player. Theater Mode darkens the interface so that your focus is the video content. It also increases the video player's on-screen real estate, while keeping the chat feed. Full Screen Mode, on the other hand, gives the video player even more space by ditching the chat feed.
You can sync your Twitch account with your Discord account to join and interact with private fan communities of your favorite streaming personalities. To help keep all of its communities safe, Twitch launched the Twitch Safety Advisory Council to draft new policy, protect marginalized streamers, and promote a healthier streaming community overall.
Twitch Broadcasting
PC gamers, if you plan to broadcast from a PC, visit the Creator Dashboard. Here you can see stats, test your stream, and download the appropriate software that enables you to stream. Video game live streaming services typically demand additional software in order to actually broadcast your gameplay to the world. This can be third-party software, such as XSplit or OBS, or software offered by the service itself.
Previously, Twitch made streamers use third-party software. However, you can now use the free Twitch Studio software. The Windows app is currently in beta, so expect some bugs, but it is more intuitive for newcomers compared to other examples of this software. If you play on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, you can stream using the appropriate Twitch console app. For streaming Nintendo Switch games, you’ll need to capture directly from the TV while docked. For more information, check out our detailed guide on how to stream on Twitch. You can also now stream gameplay using the Twitch mobile apps, as well as download clips to mobile. That's one area where YouTube (which no longer has a separate gaming app) also excels, though it has some rather particular requirements.
Caffeine offers a free broadcasting app, too. Facebook Gaming on the desktop lets you broadcast gaming straight from your Facebook page as well as from Android devices. Mobcrush lets you broadcast from your desktop as well as mobile devices. With the right technical know-how, Owncast offers you an open-source broadcasting platform.
Twitch gives you plenty of presentation tools for enhancing your stream. You can title your broadcast, set up privacy settings so that only certain people can tune in your feed, and generate a stream key that lets others who have streaming software broadcast to your channels. The last is incredibly handy for multi-person teams
Twitch used to automatically archive streamed videos by default, but not anymore (you now have to dive into options and set it up). If you want to retrieve your videos at a later time, make sure that you activate this feature, or you'll lose everything.
Twitch Turbo benefits broadcasters, too—if you're a Twitch Partner. Members of that group still get credit for ad impressions when a Twitch Turbo subscriber watches your channel. To become a Partner you must first build up a channel with enough followers, concurrent viewers, broadcast time, and total unique broadcasts to become a Twitch Affiliate. Strong Affiliate channels can then apply to be Partners and make some real money.
Why You Should Game on a PC
Scratching the Twitch
Twitch is the face of streaming video game content for good reason: It's easy to use and has enough flexibility to cater to casual and core users alike. Basic account holders must deal with some rather jarring ad videos, but, overall, Twitch is the place to go for professional and hobbyist streaming video game feeds. It's our Editors' Choice for streaming video game services.
Amazon's Twitch continues to reign as the platform for live streamers to broadcast their video game sessions, and many other works, to the web. For viewers, it's a vastly entertaining alternative to traditional streaming services, such as Hulu and Netflix.
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