According to Bloomberg, an internal document from Amazon-owned game streaming platform Twitch shows that the company is developing new, unscripted reality show-style television content to stream alongside its gaming videos.
How did Twitch.tv come about? | Justin Kan
Pandemic: Twitch offers a gaming streamer the ability to film themselves playing video games from home. The service is incredibly popular, and some streamers make a living off of it. This type of entertainment is relatively cheap to produce, and reality shows can benefit from the at-home process. It’s also something that can be made now, while some more traditional, studio-based content can’t.
Plans: Bloomberg says Twitch plans to spend between $50,000 and $250,000 per week on unscripted series, which could contain four to 10 hours of content. That’s a relatively cheap investment for Twitch, making the plan easy to scrap if it doesn’t take off. By comparison, HBO spent between $8 million and $10 million per episode on the first season of its hit scripted series Westworld.
The big picture: Twitch needs to find new ways to differentiate itself from more recent competition, like Microsoft’s Mixer and YouTube Gaming. A new stream of engaging content that appeals to Twitch’s core gamer demographic can only help.
