A new, redesigned version of the Twitch mobile app will arrive this summer, as announced by CEO Dan Clancy at this year’s TwitchCon Europe event.
The redesigned app was first announced by Clancy in an open letter in March, detailing the company’s plans for 2024.
The new app was unveiled at TwitchCon Europe’s opening ceremony, along with other new features like Creator Clubs and Enhanced Streaming.
Mobile is a key area of focus for Twitch: 70 percent of new viewers start watching Twitch on mobile, so the goal is to make it easier for these viewers to find streams for shorter, more frequent visits. Additionally, 50 percent of all users primarily use the mobile app (as well as the desktop), while 40 percent are exclusively on the mobile app.
The Discovery Feed, first announced at last year’s TwitchCon Europe, is the app’s main landing page and allows viewers to find new streamers to watch based on recommendations through viewer settings and habits.
Eurogamer spoke with VP of Product, Community Products Jeremy Forrester to further discuss the importance of mobile to the streaming platform.
“I think our mobile experience just hasn’t been heavily invested in for a long time,” Forrester said. “The previous experience works really well, for people who have been on Twitch for a long time…but we’re really trying to strike that balance between helping streamers get discovered, helping new viewers find content and really engage with communities while still trying to make it as easy as possible for people who have been on Twitch for a long time and use the app a lot to be able to come back to channels they follow and return to creators they know and love.”
The Discovery feed is placed at the top of the app to ease the back-and-forth required to access and view streams. Now streams can be viewed directly on the feed, or easily navigated from, as well as easily find follower lists, clips and more.
However, the purpose of the feed is not just to scroll – it is not intended to compete with Instagram or TikTok, for example. “The purpose of the feed is to get you to a funnel page,” Forrester said. “We don’t want you to just scroll forever, that’s not our goal. Our goal is to actually find you something to watch, find you what you’re looking for, get you on that channel page, so so you can engage with the creator and hopefully eventually become part of their community, because it’s really a win-win.”
While it’s too early to see the impact of Discovery Feed since last year, Twitch has been experimenting and evolving the feature and will continue to listen to user feedback to introduce, for example, the ability to mute videos or not play automatically. Forrester believes the “signals are good” that the feed is working as intended to engage new users.
Elsewhere at the opening ceremony, Clancy announced the introduction of Creator Clubs to help creators find communities of like-minded broadcasters. These are modeled around existing Guilds (Twitch recently launched a Pride Guild in the US, for example), with two clubs launching first for IRL DJs and streamers.
Other new features include access to Stories in the mobile app for Affiliates later this summer to create short posts; optimizing clip creation with an automatic portrait view designed for mobile viewing; and a new drop-in feature for Stream Together to allow streamers to easily collaborate, with configuration options to dictate who can collaborate and built-in support for custom layouts.
Clancy also reiterated the platform’s new DJ program, in partnership with major record labels, to allow DJs to stream popular music on the platform, as well as the new Power-ups feature that allows viewers to redeem Bits for features improved. So far, 25 percent more users have used Bits since its launch.
Finally, Enhanced Broadcasting is now available to all broadcasters in OBS Studio, giving broadcasters more control over the video quality of their streams and paving the way for better technology for everyone.
Twitch has two TwitchCon events each year in Europe and the US to celebrate its community of streamers and viewers. The opening ceremony is used to celebrate the best streamers in Europe, with a new Streamer Achievement Program offering trophies to the most engaged users – those who “hear the color purple”.
However, headlines have recently been dominated by streamer Dr Disrespect, who admits to texting a minor before his ban from Twitch in 2020. The streamer is said to have sent explicit messages to a minor even after the age was known Theirs.