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I've hesitate to be the one to make a public statement about this, but I feel like I have to say something:
@Twitch has recently made changes to their embed player that hurts streamers, viewers, and communities.
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@Twitch has recently made changes to their embed player that hurts streamers, viewers, and communities.
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About 2 months ago, Twitch began implementing what is being dubbed the 'Purple Screen of Death' (PSoD).
The PSoD is a mandatory, non-skippable 30 second interruption that is placed in ALL embeds making for a poor user experience.
The PSoD is a mandatory, non-skippable 30 second interruption that is placed in ALL embeds making for a poor user experience.
Many of you may have seen this screen months ago as an anti-adblock message. However, it has evolved far beyond an anti-adblock measure - the PSoD impacts *all* Twitch embeds, everywhere, regardless of where you are viewing them and regardless if you use adblock.
The #TwitchPSoD would be disruptive if it only showed up for the first 30 seconds. But it pops up every 15 minutes... and can override a big team fight or hype moment.
This *completely* ruins the experience and makes embeds a vastly inferior way to engage with streams.
This *completely* ruins the experience and makes embeds a vastly inferior way to engage with streams.
As of a few days ago, Twitch has made embeds even worse with yet another barrier, a disruptive message telling users to "Get the full experience" on Twitch. At least you can close this message, but it's another annoyance that negatively impacts the user experience.
Between the #TwitchPSoD and this, it clear that Twitch is doing what they can to hamstring their own embed product.
But streamers, viewers, and Twitch DO benefit from embed.
But streamers, viewers, and Twitch DO benefit from embed.
Views count towards their metric, embeds allow for users to subscribe and follow a channel directly. Developers are creating new experiences around the Twitch player, and facilitating discovery for new communities.
I would go so far as to say that Twitch wouldn't be what is is today without embeds.
It was TeamLiquid's StarCraft 2 stream embeds way back in 2010 that produced the initial momentum that led to Twitch's launch in the first place.
It was TeamLiquid's StarCraft 2 stream embeds way back in 2010 that produced the initial momentum that led to Twitch's launch in the first place.
In this example, @TLnet was THE hub for the StarCraft 2 community, and their SC2 beta stream directory drove tens of thousands of viewers to streamers, growing interest in the nascent game, kicking off the current era of esports, and giving Twitch it's first big win.
Developers are not happy... just take a look at the comments on Twitch's developer forum: https://discuss.dev.twitch.tv/t/upcoming-twitch-embeds-experiment/30125/2
These developers have spent dozens, hundreds, thousands of hours building cool products and facilitating vibrant communities around Twitch streams.
These developers have spent dozens, hundreds, thousands of hours building cool products and facilitating vibrant communities around Twitch streams.
Products like @JukedGG, @OutdoorIRL, @HLTVorg, @SaltyBet, and hundreds more use the Twitch API exactly as it was intended in interesting and unique ways. They, their users, and the streamers they support rely on embeds.
My greatest hope in putting this out there is that we can convince Twitch that the embed player is worth supporting, and to roll back recent changes and the #TwitchPSoD.
If you are a developer or a community member that has ever discovered an amazing content creators or found a community to be part of because of the Twitch player, I encourage you to RT, use the hashtag #TwitchPSoD, tweet in support of this message, or share with a friend.
Thanks for reading,
~fishy
~fishy
Posted this to r/Twitch as well for visibility: https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/l85vof/twitch_is_hurting_streamers_viewers_and/
