In late 2020, Twitch introduced a feature called Watch Parties that let creators co-watch Amazon Prime videos on-stream. Even if hosts want to livestream video themselves, they can toggle a setting to make guests audio-only before they join, disabling their cameras.ĭuring the pandemic, chat apps soared and Twitch likely recognizes that its community needs more tools to facilitate the kind of casual, fluid social spaces that made voice-only app Clubhouse a breakout hit.

Guest Star supports video but it will also allow creators to host voice-only streams. The decision to bring all users into the fold suggests that Twitch is widening its focus from its top-earning creators, an elite sliver of its user who bring in over half of the platform’s revenue. Unlike Twitch’s Squad Stream feature, which allows four creators to stream live together but requires them to be Twitch Partners, Guest Star will eventually be available to all users regardless of how prominent they are on the platform. The company foresees its community using Guest Star for formats like game shows, advice columns and radio-like sports chat shows. Later this year, Guest Star will open up to all Twitch users. By fall, streamers who want to try Guest Star will be able to sign up for a beta and will be granted access on an ongoing basis.

The feature will launch first to a small, invite-only cluster of Twitch users who are already active in the Just Chatting scene - the booming Twitch category where streamers casually hang out rather than focus on games. Creators can host and manage their guests directly within Twitch Studio or OBS, the tool of choice for many of the app’s more advanced streamers. Through Guest Star, streamers will be able to invite anyone with a Twitch account to hop into a stream from desktop or the Twitch mobile app. The company is announcing Guest Star, a new feature that will tie into existing streaming software, allowing stream hosts to bring up to five guests into a stream and swap them in and out fluidly. Twitch wants to make it easier for creators to pull guests into their livestreams, talk show-style - and everybody gets to be a creator.

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