Hi. I'm Emmett Shear, founder and CEO of Twitch, the world's leading video platform and community for gamers. Ask Me Anything!

Right now there is evidence that most if not all of Time Warner Cable subscribers are seeing massive lag issues for the past few months, especially during peak hours. Where before 1080p streaming was possible, streams will now lag at 480p and lower. The choke seems to be between Twitch's CDN and TWC (Level3). This allows both TWC and Twitch to say "it isn't us" when really it's both. Using a VPN, Proxy, or another ISP that doesn't utilize Level3 for the handoff fixes the problem. What can twitch.tv do to help alleviate this issue for its users?

We're always working on better peering relationships to improve those kinds of issues.

If you want to assign fault, these kinds of things are really "both parties fault", but that's not helpful. The best thing you can do for us is to ask Time Warner to peer with us -- we're more than happy to peer with them!

Several users in your forums have called Time Warner Cable, but they are not willing to help. This isn't something users can fix. This is way higher up on the food chain. This requires a high level meeting between Twitch and TWC to get this resolved. Anything less is not helpful and your TWC viewers will continue to suffer. I have already stopped using Twitch because its practically unusable right now.

Trust me, we're working on it - but we can't force them to peer with us anymore than you can. It doesn't help US to have bad service in any way...

Hi. Can I have a job?

Thank you in advance, Scott Smith Director of Cool Shit at Twitch

First, retrieve the Gauntlet of Viridian Power from across the River Of Terrible Flame.

Did Sony ever approach Twitch for the PS4 streaming service?

No comment.

Why does the Twitch.tv Android/iOS app suck? It only loads a fraction of the available games being streamed on your site.

I've answered this like 18 times in the thread already but: technical limitations. Believe me, we're working on it - why on earth would we WANT to limit the number of streams available?

why on earth would we WANT to limit the number of streams available?

Well now you're just asking me to stretch my imagination.

You're a petty, petty person who got into an argument with the local ice-cream man. Through nefarious means, you obtained info on his life, his habits, his desires, and you discovered that his only joy in life was to watch his favorite streamer using the only connection he had available: his phone.

It was a small channel, not many followers and never peaking 200 concurrent viewers, so you devised a plan. Change the app, limit streams and draw the line high enough so that the ice-cream man would never again be able to enjoy his one true passion.

You bastard.

You got me.

what do you think about youtube streaming?

It's cute.

Why is twitch so awful in Europe? I've been using twitch for years and have seen people say you're getting more servers for Europe but it's still nowhere near fixed.

We love Europe. Here's how we get to where we are today:

1) Twitch launches

2) Twitch is popular in Europe, and has no European datacenters at all

3) Twitch struggles to grow in Europe

4) Twitch opens first EU datacenter! Much rejoicing!

5) Immediately, European viewers grow. They watch more video, they watch higher bitrates, it's awesome! And then the EU datacenter is saturated. Everyone says Twitch sucks in Europe.

6) Twitch opens 2 more datacenters and expands the first. More rejoicing!

7) You know what happens next. Everyone says Twitch sucks in Europe.

8) Present day: Twitch opens 3 MORE datacenters in Europe (launching very soon). There will be much rejoicing.

Hopefully this time we will be able to get the NEXT set of datacenters open before you guys use it all up..but the appetite for video seems voracious.

This. Give Europe more love, especially the nordic region.

We are specifically opening a Stockholm datacenter for this reason.

How do you feel about the whole Own3d.tv debacle?

I wish it hadn't happened - it's bad for the whole ecosystem when people don't get paid.

Which channel has the highest KPM? (Kappa per minute)

Kappa kappa? Kappa. Kappa kappa kappa, kappa kappa kappa kappa. KAPPA!

Do you plan to enable the subscriber option on all channels eventually? Or is there any other things that "smaller" streamers can look forward to in the future? At the moment it seems like a rich get richer situation where people are already sponsored, then partnered, and now have subscribers.

Yes, we do. We want to spread this stuff out as much as possible, but it requires more automation.

Awesome. Lookin forward to it. Please hug John for me the next time you see him. Or at the very least cup his balls.

Definitely.

http://imgur.com/0KoUY2c

Am I doing it right?

Hey Emmett! Towelliee here :P

Is the game plan of sites like Twitch and YouTube you thinking changing much due to the increase in Ad Blocking going on? Will Ad Blocking prove to be more troublesome then anything else for sites like Twitch?

We believe that AdBlock happens when people have too many ads or obnoxious ads.

It's our responsibility to make sure that Twitch ads are reasonable so people don't have to block them.

Adblock user here. What annoys me the most?

• 30 second long ads, or ads longer than that. 15 - 20 seconds is the sweet-spot for ads.
• Ads that ask you to click on an option to view a different advert else they won't close or they'll take a minute to close. Those adverts should be outright banned from your site, period.
• Ads that ignore Twitch volume settings or are far too loud anyway.
• The same old ads. Having experienced the same old horrible Microsoft Bing brostep ads made me use Adblock in the first place. Or most recently when I watch streams on TL (where adblock was disabled) I saw the same old PlayStation Plus ads with that godawful DJ Fresh - Gold Dust song played ad infinitium.
• Pre-roll ads that happen every time you reload a stream.
• For ads longer than 15 seconds there should be a Skip Advertisement button that appears 5 seconds in, just like with YouTube. Twitch lacks this shit.

We need to bring ads more in-house to do these things. As we get bigger they will become possible.

Are there any plans for Google Glass?

I don't even...what...how would you....

How much bandwidth do you guys use on a regular day? During a major tournament?

Ya know, a petabyte or three. No biggie.

how come when i mute the stream ads still have FULL sound? >_>

Buggy ads written by evil advertisers. When we find these we ban them. People keep sneaking them in. Hopefully some day we'll have direct control over all ads we run and this won't be a problem.

Are you planning on releasing the purple Twitch hoodies that only are available to partners to the public one day?

We hear the call for Sweet Twitch Schwag, and we will answer.

As an avid streamer, one of my favorite aspects of the "old" Twitch layout was HTML. It allowed for the streamer to add personality to his or her page.

While I agree with most of the "new" layout from a viewer's perspective (bigger chat, bigger default viewing window, etc), one of the things I find most baffling is the panel system and the use of Markdown instead of HTML. Everyone's info. section on the "new" layout has a uniform look (and an ugly one at that), with very limited options for embedding or artistic appeal.

Will Twitch consider undoing the mistake of replacing HTML with the Markdown/panel system? It is the one major component from the old layout that was lost in the transition.

We were trying to solve two problems with one page. We're not totally happy with the current compromise either - though I think it's better than the previous page.

Viewers want consistency, simplicity, and flexibility in the interface. The new channel page has higher minutes watched per viewer, better retention, etc. etc.

Broadcasters want to be able to share their experiences and personality. We tried to compromise and allow both, but we'll keep working until we have something that's great for everyone.

Not to mention, allowing "personality" is a double edged sword. MySpace allowed too much, and the site devolved into a huge mess as people started slapping misc. CSS they found online onto the page. The more "personality" you allow in the hands of an untrained eye, the more quickly the pages start to look like Geocities.

Yes, this is definitely one of the problems we're trying to address.

How do you feel about Ustream getting the PS4 streaming feature? Is Twitch gonna try get on there?

No comment :-)

[deleted]

No comment :-)

in fairness he might be under a NDA clause atm so could be twitch coming to the PS4 as well

No comment :-)

Twitch, in my opinion, is THE best live streaming platform around. However, there is are still a few things missing in my opinion, which would make it better. 1) Have seperate ability to make a slowmode for subscribers and non-subscribers, and 2) Have the ability to rewind live streams if you miss the start, rather than have to wait for the VOD to be made available. Are there any plans to implement these in the near future?

1) In the queue.

2) In the queue.

:-D

Sorry, I didn't put a lot of thought into this question, but what game do you play the most in your free time? I was just kinda curious haha

Magic: The Gathering, StarCraft 2, and games like Portal/Limbo/Braid

How do you feel about websites that bring traffic to Twitch.TV, such as SpeedRunsLive.com? How much traffic do you get from places that aren't Twitch.TV's own website? Any plans to promote people who send you viewers?

We get a lot of traffic from referrals, and we love sites like speedrunslive.com.

Not sure where/how we'd promote them -- our broadcasters seem to do a pretty good job promoting things they like already!

Will Twitch ever adopt the rewind while live feature azubu and YouTube have?

We call it "DVR", and yes. When we can scale it.

What's the problem with the VOD system? It really bugs out so much .

We've always focused on live first. VOD unfortunately has to come second for us. That said...look for improvements here.

How big of a part do you think platforms like Twitch will have in the growth of eSports? Where do you see eSports in 5/10 years?

In 10 years eSports will be bigger than athletic sports.

I'm not kidding: more people play video games than sports already. Viewership will follow.

[deleted]

When we run out of EU capacity, we spillover to the US rather than either A) overloading EU servers, or B) refusing to serve new viewers.

We're opening 3 new datacenters shortly in the EU for just this reason.

1) With the upcoming International 2013 this August, what preparations are being done to ensure a good viewing experience for Dota 2 fans?

2) Will we be seeing more Twitch TV sponsored gaming tournaments in the future?

3) What video games are popular with the staff?

1) We're massively expanding our server footprint in Europe over the next two months. This isn't just for the International obviously, but it should help!

2) We like sponsoring tournaments, but we don't like competing with our broadcasters with official Twitch stuff. So we'll do more, but we like to stay more behind the scenes.

3) Most popular in the office right now is Magic: The Gathering.

Mr. Emmett Shear, In your free time, what streams do you like to watch the most?

Recently I've been watching a lot of WCS and darkest_mage.

How has Twitch Turbo been going? Are streamers seeing sustainable revenue from it? Is Twitch getting meaningful income from Turbo subscribers?

I recall suggesting an all-in-one subscription model in one of your viewer surveys and a few months later you rolled Turbo out. I signed up right away. :)

Turbo is going just fine, but we've heard so many requests for features on the channel subscription side we'll probably spend some time there for a while before moving Turbo forward again.

Twitch has taken multiple rounds of investment, do you foresee needing another round of investment, and is Twitch profitable?

Sorry, we have a policy against announcing information about our financials. Keeping this kind of stuff secret is important for business reasons.

1) When are you getting rid of Flash?

2) Any plans regarding the chat?

1) We'll get rid of Flash when the least-common-denominator for video players lets us do so.

2) I have no idea what you're asking about here.

[deleted]

Try to ask questions to which I actually know an answer :-D

I think the next "big step" for online broadcasting will be deep metadata integrations.

Why does the iOS app display ads even though I am a turbo subscriber. Oh and why does the iOS app suck balls.

We don't run any video ads on iOS. The Kabam unit, if that's what you're referring to, is not particularly prominent nor is it really an "advertisement" in the traditional sense. But the real answer is: we haven't implemented Turbo for iOS yet.

The iOS app is actually pretty good now, at the limited things it does. It provides video for every stream we can make available. As we expand to every stream, we want to keep that high level of quality.

Yay, I love twitch, I use it for Mechwarrior online!

My question is: What are your thoughts on the whole Nintendo claiming ownership of player posted content fiasco? Are you concerned this may happen with live streams?

I think Nintendo is making a big mistake, and they'll see the consequences of that mistake. But it's their mistake to make.

Is it true that more than half of the Twitch bandwith is being used for Kappa spam on chats? Please say yes.

Closer to 83.3333% (repeating of course)

Hey Emmett,

Will you please implement a Twitch Face for EG.Suppy, a very successful NA Starcraft 2 player and streamer? Your staff fishstix1 (hai fishy) and fuzzyotterballs have praised the quality of the Suppy face that we have already rendered for usage in Twitch chats.

In addition, we have already coined the Twitch code "DAESuppy" for usage of this face.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Cute_Zergling, Team owner of QTLing and notorious stream monster.

Edit: In addition, here is Fishstix supporting the DAESuppy movement.

ISuppy.

Thanks for doing this AMA! Sorry, about the lack of lag or volume questions here…

• What are some ways that you’ve seen companies change how they react to your presence broadcasting their games over the last few years?

• How has the CBS advertising deal awhile back impacted how you do business?

• How much change do you think that the next generation of consoles and web/TV integration will bring to the broadcast/advertising space?

1) Gaming companies care a lot more about people sharing their game than they used to.

2) CBS has been a great partner for us in most ways, but it's sometimes frustrating to not have direct control over all of our advertising and have to work through a 3rd party. No knock on CBS, just a fundamental fact of outsourcing sales.

3) It's going to be a total game-changer, I think.

Whats your favorite game to see streaming? Not sure what tense of stream to use, Thanks!

Right now, Magic: The Gathering.

Why do you guys run your own datacenters rather than use say AWS like netflix do? I get that you probably get a better deal per GB but don't you incur more costs because you aren't as flexible, not only do more people watch at peak times but viewership can be extremely erratic, one weekend you could have triple your regular concurrents due to a big tournament.

1) Netflix doesn't use AWS for streaming. They use it for web servers. Totally different thing. Netflix uses video CDNs for streaming.

2) Live video and VOD are completely different. Think about what we do: up to 10,000 simultaneous channels, hundreds being transcoded in realtime, delivered globally with as little lag as possible. We ingest more video in a single day than Netflix has in their entire library. Netflix can distribute and cache their video around the world, and they're good-to-go. We can't ... because we're live.

Not that I'm taking away from the awesome work done by the Netflix team on video delivery, just that the problems are totally different.

First off, thank you for doing this AMA.

I am a daily twitch user and have been on the site since launch, streaming as well.

Did you ever expect the site to become this successful? Looking back, what are some of your favorite moments?

Thanks again!

1) No, I thought we'd get some success but I never thought it'd be this big.

2) One of my favorite moments is still meeting Day9 at MLG Dallas right after we really got going, and trying to act all cool about it.

I've been watching gaming stream since JTV then to the transition to TwitchTV. One thing I've noticed is that the popular streamers back then, who are arguably some of the people that really got gaming streaming popular, have been pushed out by eSports and pro-gamers due to their massive followership. In result, people who are relatively new to watching streams only see the pro gamers in the "All Channel" listing.

Is there a chance for new live streamers to get popular by putting eSport/eSport related streams in a new tab/bracket? Or maybe another way to promote new or upcoming streamers? Thanks.

This is something we think about a lot. The problem is that discovery by game always wins when we test things, but we'll keep trying other ways to help people discover interesting content.

So, what's the deal with Kabam? Did they approach Twitch or vice versa?

I personally think it feels really out of place on Twitch and I've seen similar viewpoints from a lot of other Twitch viewers. It just doesn't make a lot of sense apart from "They paid us a lot of money".

They approached us, but we agreed because A) it might be a good way to make some money, and B) we wanted to see if Twitch users were interested in more casual games. I'm sure if we polled people most hardcore Twitch users would say no...but the hardcore people who comment on reddit are not 100% of our users.

When will the twitch merchandise store open? I really want to show support :D Also, favourite food to eat whilst gaming? :3

Don't have a date, but as soon as we can.

Krave jerky. Best jerky.

I know you like to keep "merch" exclusive for the broadcasters & staff, but will you sell shirts in the future?

(Let me buy a twitch shirt!)

Coming!

With the PS4 partnering with UStream, were you ever approached to partner with the Xbox One?

No comment :-)

Do you guys promote/sponsor any games specifically? I know a John (synwyn) who works for twitch that has done LOADS for the competitive TF2 community and that game wouldn't be where it is (even if it's not hugely popular) without him. I've noticed you saying you watch a lot of Magic: The Gathering, are you involved in the community at all?

I mostly watch and read chat. I participate occasionally.

What inspired you to startup Twitch?

(BTW, I LOVE Twitch. I'm a caster there: GodOfKonckers)

The only content that I watched on Justin.tv was gaming content.

How much of the money does Twitch keep when you subscribe to someone?

Depends on the specific person.

Why do you guys not allow Towelliee to do Towelliee After Dark? If a channel is 18+ shouldn't they be allowed to host the content they want to? Also how do you feel about the game companies being so strict on broadcasters even requesting bans from you guys for sometimes honest mistakes.

Don't know anything about Towelliee After Dark, so I can't comment.

Hey Emmett,

I don't really have any questions, just wanted to say my name is actually Emmett aswell. It's pretty uncommon, so us Emmetts gotta stick together.

Much love,

Emmett

Dude, High-Emmett-Five!

Heey, great job on Twitch. I've been with you guys as a random streamer since JTV and always preferred you guys. <3

However, when are we going to see instant live replay, like at youtube livestreaming, so we can watch that one moment we missed or relive that moment once more?

As soon as we can - love that feature.

Can you make it so I can search and watch ANY CHANNEL on the Android mobile app? Currently, only the top X number of games/channels based on number of viewers are shown and available, and I often want to watch channels that don't show up and I can't search to find them. :-(

Working on it. Technical limitations. Hopefully fixed soon.

Is there any thoughts on allowing viewers to filter specific games out of their channel list?

I'm one of those people who would like to be able to just browse through the regular channel list minus games like LoL, or WoW, or SC2 in favor of finding some variety game streams that I just don't see because I don't want to take forever sifting through LoL channels in the regular channel browser.

I know there's the game browser, but sometimes I'm not looking for a specific game.

This is something we want to do.

Questions in regards to Twitch.tv Partnership status

• Why is it so much more difficult to get a partnership than what is suggested on the page you apply to?

• FuzzyOtterBalls has said on twitter response times vary but should take approx 1 week. Sometimes there is no response at all (limbo for 5 weeks+), is this a bug or a staff problem?

• From my understanding, part of why partnerships aren't handed out liberally is due to it being expensive for twitch's upkeep to allow broadcasters to transmit in multiple resolutions (360 -> 1080). There are many channels that may have once met partnership requirements, but now barely get more than 10~40 views average, are there any plans to clean these up to allow for newer partners to rise up?

• A staff member had mentioned once that twitch.tv was potentially planning to sell some sort of 'coding pack' (allowing the multiple resolutions) for a cost per month, is it possible to get a confirmation on this? If so what was the thought process behind it?

Edit: Don't want to seem like im berating with stupid question, I really do like Twitch, and my favourite part of twitch.tv has to be the chat system above all other similar websites <3

1) It's not much more difficult. The rules are the rules, pretty much. A lot of people have overinflated senses of how much traffic they actually get though.

2) For first-time applicants we turn it around fast. I'm not sure we are as quick when someone reapplies.

3) Turning on transcodes costs a lot of money. We're looking at other ways to get people transcodes other than getting partnered.

4) Yup, working on that.

Thanks for doing this AMA! I've been using Twitch since its inception & has really catered to the gaming community, so hats off to putting us first.

Currently streaming topless = having your channel disabled. Are there any plans on allowing us to stream topless or to loosen the rules on this?

Serious question

Nope. If you want to stream topless, find another site. Sorry.

I know it's a silly question, but...what is your favorite Twitch emoticon? :D

OptimizePrime, obviously :-P

Is your service going to be used for Xbox One's recording/sharing scene?

No comment.

Will it ever be possible to easily download your backlogs? I want to download your content because I can't stream it when I'm in a car or at the gym.

I know this is a niche concern but since Twitch seems to rarely run ads on backlogs and you aren't a payed service I was hoping this service would come.

We're working on improving our post-live Video-on-Demand offering.

Are you participating in E3 2013 somehow, and if so, what is your role there? Do you think it's possible to stream what is shown there or is it restricted?

I'll be at E3 - chilling at our booth and going to meetings.

Since the technology is obviously there, will Twitch be looking into direct livestreaming with the PS4?

No comment :-)

What are your opinions of eSports, and how much Twitch and other services have greatly helped their popularity?

I love eSports? I mean, what do you think :-P

I certainly think Twitch, along with other video sites, have greatly expanded access. Before you had to travel to an in-person event.

Haven't researched a lot, but will Twitch be hosting tournaments I'm the future? Or just be a partner?

Probably won't be hosting many, but we will continue to be a partner for them.

No question, just a thank you for stepping it up and providing the best online streaming service I've ever used. Really, if we take a look at how Own3d was a year ago and compare it to Twitch, it was almost night and day. And now a days, Own3d doesn't even exist anymore, but Twitch is still making leaps and bounds to provide a better service to everyone instead of just cashing in on the huge market. So thank you for keeping it real and your service is appreciated.

Thanks!

What is your favorite type of cuisine?

Probably Japanese, but it varies. GOOD food is my favorite food.

Are there available statistics for Twitch viewership, including stats for individual games?

What kind of (realistic or idealistic) milestones do you think eSports need to achieve some kind of mainstream attention?

We track these stats and publish a monthly summary.

The main milestones are viewership milestones. Spread the word!

Why does it seem that twitch is unwatchable for a lot of people during primetime, specifically TWC users?

Bad connection between us and TWC, or bad connection between TWC and their users. We're doing what we can to address the first, but really TWC has to take the lead here. There's only so much we can do without their help.

Any extra things planned for the inevitable crashes The International 3 will bring this year? I really want to use Twitch but with DotaTV up as a no lagg alternative you're gonna have to have step it up in terms of quality

Also how do you like that own3d is gone?

We've handled much bigger tournaments since the last International with no crashes, so I think we'll be fine. But I agree: video quality of service has to be our number one priority, always. We work on other things after we're doing everything we can there.

Re: Own3d, it's frustrating to have a competitor sometimes. But the consequences of them failing are bad for the ecosystem as a whole, so I would rather they not have failed.

Are we going to see any major changes to the streaming software/protocol?

Do you see any major competitors, since own3d went down?

1) We may become more restrictive as to what codecs and formats people use in order to be able to scale better and offer better service. But we may not.

2) ...YouTube?

Favourite game to watch?

Magic: The Gathering.

when do u plan to fix the german paypal subscribe issue?

We have an engineer working on our payments system right now to address these kinds of issues.