TwitchCon San Diego is taking place this weekend and, as always, the platform had some news to share during the opening ceremony. For one thing, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said the service will offer streamers and viewers who break the rules more clarity over why their accounts were suspended.
Soon, Twitch will share any chat excerpt that led to a suspension with the user in question via email and the appeals portal. Eventually, this will expand to clips, so streamers can see how they were deemed to have broken the rules on a livestream or VOD. “We want to give you this information so that you can see what you did, what policies were violated, and if you feel our decision was incorrect, you can appeal,” Twitch wrote in a blog post.
The service is also aware that permanent strikes on an account can pose a problem for long-time streamers who may eventually get banned for a smaller slip up. To that end, Twitch is bringing in a strike expiration policy starting in early 2025. “Low-severity strikes will no longer put streamers’ livelihoods at risk, but we’ll still enforce the rules for major violations,” Twitch said. “Plus, we’re adding more transparency by showing you exactly what led to a strike.”
On the broadcasting front, viewers of streamers who are using Twitch’s Enhanced Broadcasting feature will be able to watch streams in 2K starting early next year. This option will be available in select regions at first, with Twitch planning to expand it elsewhere throughout 2025. Also of note, Clancy said that “we’re working on 4K.”
Also coming in 2025 is the option for those using Enhanced Broadcasting to stream vertical and landscape video at the same time. The idea here is to offer viewers an optimal experience depending on which device they’re using to watch streams.
Elsewhere, Twitch is planning some improvements to navigation in its overhauled mobile app, such as letting you access your Followed channels with a single swipe and prioritizing audio from the picture-in-picture player. Streamers will have access to a feature called Clip Carousel, which will highlight the best clips from their latest stream and make them easy to share on desktop and mobile. The platform says it’ll be easier for viewers to create clips on mobile devices too.
In addition, Twitch will roll out a shared chat option in the Stream Together feature next week, allowing up to six creators who are streaming together to combine their chats. Streamers’ mods will be able to moderate all of the messages in a shared chat and time out or ban anyone who crosses a line. Creators who hop on a Stream Together session can also turn off Shared Chat for their own community.
Last but not least, Twitch will expand its Unity Guilds and Creator Clubs. The idea behind both is to help streamers forge connections, learn from each other and grow with the help of Twitch staff. Over the last year, Twitch has opened up the Black Guild, Women’s Guild and Hispanic and Latin Guild, and it just announced a Pride Guild for the LGBTQIA+ community. All four guilds will expand to accept members from around the world next year.
Creator Clubs are a newer thing that Twitch debuted last month for the DJ and IRL categories. Twitch says that engagement has been higher than expected. Four more Creator Clubs are coming soon for the Artists/Makers, Music, VTubers and Coworking/Coding categories.
