There are different types of ads on Twitch, but one of the most annoying and one of the most disapproved ads in the community is the pre-roll. In terms of advertising, a pre-roll is one that plays before the content itself. When it comes to Twitch, a few points Before a streamer can even see if their content is interesting, Twitch’s new CEO wants to get rid of them.

How does Twitch work?. When the user enters Twitch, the platform offers them to see both the streamers they follow and other users who may be interested. The problem is that when you click on a currently streaming streamer, the first thing Twitch (and YouTube and many other platforms say) does is play one or more ads before allowing you to view the content.

Complex for new publishers. These ads allow streamers (and Twitch) to generate revenue, but create a huge amount of friction when discovering new creators. This was expressed by Dan Clancy, the new CEO of Twitch. In his own words: “I don’t think this is the right experience when trying to discover new content. While watching you say ‘let me check this out’ and you get an ad that blocks you. You avoid finding new publishers.”

new vs unknown. Twitch is a very competitive platform and therefore it is difficult to stand out and hold on. YouTube has a built-in search engine and allows channel discovery through specific searches and suggested system, but on Twitch this is more complex. A user may be willing to see ads in exchange for seeing the publisher they trust, but may not be willing to discover new content or creators that may be of interest to them. It’s the difference between seeing something you already know you’ll like and seeing something you don’t like.

Solution: look for other options. Clancy himself admits that he had to come across these ads while exploring smaller channels. That’s why, aware of the issue, Twitch’s new CEO said, “We’re currently doing some testing and soon we’ll launch some things that really move away from pre-roll ads when people try to discover new channels.” They will disappear from channels we have never seen before, and eventually they will disappear from other channels.

Popular ads at the sweetest moment. It makes some sense that Twitch’s CEO made this announcement, because Twitch isn’t having its best moment. The platform peaked in the pandemic and has failed to grow since. There’s a lot of competition, see fig. Decisions were also made that didn’t completely satisfy TikTok, YouTube, and the controversial Kick and creator community. Breaking this news might help Twitch bounce back, but we’ll see.

this is not the first. It’s true that it’s important that the CEO himself makes this announcement, but this isn’t the first time Twitch has made that promise. In late 2022, Mike Minton, Twitch’s head of monetization, said, “Nobody wants to see a pre-roll ad when trying to find new streamers. Find streamers.”

Image | Twitch with its own assembly

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