Twitch has recently been bombarded with millions of bot accounts, making live streams difficult, as there is no clear way for players to know who is a legitimate viewer and what the motives are of those that tune in. This recent surge in bot accounts is a problem for Twitch, the Amazon streaming platform, whose player base is dependent on authentic engagement between a streamer and their community.
With the recent exponential increase in bot accounts, this may be another reason for streamers to leave and go to other streaming platforms, such as YouTube. Twitch streamer CodeMiko is reportedly making the jump to YouTube because of other reasons, like its revenue splits and advertising policies. The reason for this recent insurgence of bot accounts is due to a new and easier method that allows a user to create multiple bot accounts, although it is currently unclear what exactly this method is.
During a 24-hour period, there have been over 4 million bot accounts created on Twitch, with the numbers continuing to rise. The Twitch community has called on the platform to do something about the issue, and although there has been no news on how it is to solve the problem, a Twitch developer responded on Twitter saying that the teams are aware of the ongoing issues and are currently working out solutions. Before this incident took place, a top Twitch executive left the company amid the streamer payment controversy. Even so, this bot issue might want to take precedence on how to proceed with the platform's list of problems, as now the problems will be at the forefront of the streaming experience, rather than other complications that do not affect the viewing experience.
These other issues on Twitch may extend beyond policy changes, including controversies regarding gambling, and even the popular Twitch streamers themselves, such as online personality drama and cheating controversies. As a result, live stream gaming has evolved into its own culture on Twitch that extends far beyond the games themselves.
Twitch users will want to stay tuned for further updates on this ongoing problem. Twitch banned 15 million bot accounts in 2021, so it is suspected that action should be taken soon. In the meantime, there are proactive steps that streamers can take, such as implementing security measures into their live chat and allowing mods to report accounts that have a multitude of numbers in them, as those can be accurate signs to distinguish between bot accounts and active members of a streamers' Twitch community.
Source: Dexerto