Twitch, the popular Amazon.com- owned live streaming video platform for video games announced their newest move- expanding into the community of artists and enthusiasts alike.
LA Times reports that the video platform dedicated to video games sees a growing interest into artists live- streaming themselves while executing their art- from sculpting to painting, building robots, and many more, among users who are generally into video games.
According to Bill Moorier, head of Twitch Creative, "the community became too numerous to ignore". He also adds that "The passion he sees in these (art) broadcasters reminds him of the early days of Twitch with the gaming community".
The 2 million viewers of the growing community of artists are only a fraction of the app's more than 100 million users to date. Twitch's new move aims to promote artistic and unique videos of artists and art broadcasters. It will contain a 'link' feature that enables these videos likely to become more visible amid the numerous video game content in the site. Hashtags are also added in order to increase visibility and popularity of these videos. They are also considering hiring professionals to create tools that are apt to art broadcasters.
Artists who uses Twitch can profit from ads and subscriptions from the online community's users. Moorier said that since artists are seen executing commissioned work, the company might look into that process to increase the artist's revenue while the company takes a cut from hosting their live- streamed performance.
Twitch's launch on the new initiative will feature a 403- episode marathon of former TV personality, Bob Ross' PBS show, "The Joy of Painting" just in time for his birthday next week.
