Twitch Expands Cheering and Bits Beta to US and UK Regions
Every Partnered streamer in US and UK can enable Cheering on their channels with animated emotes called Bits
SAN FRANCISCO – August 2, 2016 – Twitch, the world’s leading social video platform and community for gamers, today announced that Cheering–a colorful way for viewers to show support for their favorite streamers via chat–is now available to all Partnered streamers in the United States and United Kingdom. The limited beta began with less than a hundred Partnered channels and now thousands of streamers can allow viewers to Cheer in their chat window. Cheers are chat messages highlighted by highly visible animated emotes called Bits which are purchased by viewers to both celebrate and show support for their favorite streamers.
“Since the launch of the initial Cheering and Bits beta, we’ve been focusing on bringing more value to the Cheering program for streamers and their viewers,” said Bobby Scarnewman, Product Manager, Twitch. “We’ve also received a lot of requests from other streamers to include them in the program and bring this new experience to their communities. Because of that demand, we built opt-in tooling so our partners can enable Cheering on their channels and take advantage of this new and flexible way for viewers to show their support by celebrating right in the Twitch chat.”
Once a Partnered streamer opts into Cheering via their dashboard, viewers can purchase Bits to use for Cheering on the streamer’s channel. Bits are available for purchase starting at $1.40 for 100 Bits. To Cheer using Bits, simply type “cheer” followed by the number of Bits you want to use, such as cheer33, cheer255. Higher numbers use more Bits, which means bigger Cheers as the result of more vibrant Bits emotes.
Bits can be purchased through the Bits icon at the bottom of the chat window on participating channels. Viewers can earn special chat badges by Cheering which then makes them visible as a strong supporter of the respective channel. Cheer Chat Badges may be toggled on and off.
Most recently, Cheering was activated for the first time at a major esports event, EVO 2016, where viewers could Cheer to show support for specific players at this epic fighting game tournament.
Participating streamers can continue to use third party integrations available from Muxy, TwitchAlerts, Design by Teak, and others to make custom on-screen acknowledgements for their supporters.
Read more about Cheering and Bits and plans to roll it out to Partners in other regions on the Twitch blog.
For daily updates, visit the Twitch blog, Twitter feed and Facebook page. Social links: @twitch, #Twitch.
