Twitch launches Stories feature on mobile app
Boosting offline engagement.
Twitch has today launched its new Stories feature on the platform's mobile app.
Originally announced at TwitchCon Paris, the feature works a bit like social media posts to allow streamers to create community with their followers even when not live.
The Stories shelf will appear at the top of the Following page. Creating Stories is currently limited to Partners and Affiliates who have streamed at least once in the past 30 days.
Stories can be images, clips, or freeform content using text, channel emotes and backgrounds. Once posted they will expire after 48 hours, with push notifications alerting followers of a new post. Engagement analytics will also be provided.
In addition, streamers with at least 30 subscribers (including gift subs) will be able to post sub-only stories - an extra incentive to persuade viewers to subscribe.
Twitch has already clarified that Stories will be held to the same Community Guidelines as other content on Twitch to ensure safety. Stories that violate these guidelines can be reported.
More features will also be added to Stories in the future, including mentioning other users, creating polls, uploading videos, and clip editing.
Stories will join the Discovery Feed in the app, which was also announced at TwitchCon Paris and includes clips from suggested streamers.
Together with clip editing and the ability to export clips directly to TikTok, Twitch is building these features with a mobile-first mindset. However, it is not aiming to be a complete social media platform.
"We're not building the Feeds to compete with TikTok, we don't want to build a platform where people just come and consume the feed for an hour a day," product VP Jeremy Forrester told Eurogamer at TwitchCon Paris.
"We want to utilise things like short form content and UX that people are familiar with in order to help streamers grow their live stream community. For us livestream will continue to be the heart of everything that Twitch does.
"Lots of streamers have to actively encourage their Twitch viewers to go follow them on other platforms so they can continue to communicate with them. We're going to provide a more rounded solution.
"But it's not a move for us to compete with Instagram on Stories, or compete with TikTok on short form video. We want to help augment streamers' livestreams and help them engage with their communities."
2023 has been a difficult year for Twitch, with several new features misfiring and layoffs back in March.
Twitch director of community marketing and production Mary Kish admitted to Eurogamer the company is in a "trust building period right now".