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The new branded content rules are rather extensive, and render many streamers’ revenue sources outside of Twitch as violations of its terms of service. The rules include limiting on-stream logos to three percent of screen size, and disallowing burned-in video, display, and audio ads. “Burned-in” refers to “prerecorded ads or commercials that are embedded directly into the stream” via software like OBS and Xsplit, according to the extensive update Twitch shared on its help page.
Branded content is a major source of income for streamers, as the controversial 50/50 revenue split of September 2022 left them feeling exploited by the Amazon-owned company. Contracts with gamer-marketed soft drinks or gaming peripherals allow them to manually place banners into their streams, with the money from that partnership going directly into their pocket—not being split down the middle like the revenue from ads that play through Twitch.
“The big creators are the ones who get fucked by this almost exclusively,” CEO of Ping Labs and former Twitch employee Theo Browne told Kotaku over the phone. “And that’s what’s scary—the top 100 streamers on Twitch just got told they’re not allowed to make 80 percent of their revenue the way they’re used to making it. This is gonna have repercussions.”
As one streamer rather sarcastically pointed out, since Twitch’s new ad rules do allow creators to place branded products in the background of their streams, they can at least try to crowd their streaming setups with random items.
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