Twitch has long been considered a gaming-focused streaming service, going back to the platform's creation in 2011 when it split off from Justin.tv. Justin.tv has since been closed down and Twitch has leaned further and further into real-life streaming content. This is an area where Twitch is facing increased competition, however. TikTok in particular has been building a growing livestreaming audience recently. As evidence that TikTok is taking this seriously, it's even going so far as to add account subscriptions.
In an announcement made this past week, TikTok officially confirmed plans to launch a beta for its TikTok LIVE Subscription feature. LIVE Subscriptions are, as their name implies, a way for TikTok users to subscriber to their favorite TikTok streaming content creators. It's a monthly payment, a portion of which goes to both TikTok and the creator, and the user will get some exclusive awards to show that they're supporting the creator.
Three different perks will be available to TikTok LIVE subscribers when the feature launches. The first is a profile subscription badge showing what TikTok creators the user is subscribed to. These can be "upgraded" over time, presumably like Twitch where longer subscribers are rewarded different badges. To repeat, the badges are shown in the subscriber's profile, not in chat. It's possible that this is incorrect, but TikTok specifically says they're displayed in profiles and doesn't mention chat.
Second, subscribers will be given access to custom emotes specific to the creator they subscribed to. This is another mainstay Twitch feature, with many popular Twitch streamers' success driven by demand for access to their emotes. The third perk is also a Twitch-like privilege for subscribers. It's access to subscriber-only chat, should a TikTok LIVE streamer decide to make their chat subscriber-only.
TikTok LIVE Subscriptions are not available to TikTok accounts yet. For the time being, the feature is only being made available to select creators that TikTok has chosen individually. The feature will roll out to everyone in the months to come, but will still have restrictions. Subscriptions will only be available to those 18 years or older and who have at least 1,000 followers on their account.
Clearly, TikTok believes that investing more heavily into supporting the livestreaming economy on its platform has value. Subscriptions will also make TikTok that much more viable for streamers to make a living on the platform. Whether that means streamers will make the jump to TikTok, or new streamers will start on TikTok instead of Twitch or YouTube, remains to be seen. Regardless, the streaming platform wars are continuing to heat up.