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Create a Game Development Category.

Creative and IRL used to be categories on Twitch. Everything that wasn't games was in Creative. This means everything from Bob Ross to ASMR (let's be real that's the same thing.) was all in one place and entirely unsearchable.|

Twitch broke up Creative and IRL into a bunch of new and rad categories to help discoverability. This included Music, Art, Beauty, Food, Just Chatting, Tabletops, ASMR, Science & Technology, and others. This category splitting really helped a lot of smaller communities grow. It was easier to find new and interesting streamers because you could now discover them in an otherwise bloated and unsearchable wasteland.

For a brief period of time Game Development was also a category right after Creative was brought down. We had a huge amount of new viewers in that category but Twitch removed it after only two weeks. We were averaging 7.1 new followers per hour under Game Development.

Science & Technology however did not gain any benefit from this. It's become another catch all like Creative was. Weed growing, animal cams, earthquake sims, and a few programmers mixed in. We average 2.8 new followers per hour in this category because nobody knows what it is.

If you search Game Development on Twitch right now the category doesn't show up, neither do streams with the tag of Game Development, in fact... nothing shows up. If you search for Science "AND" Technology you get nothing. You actually have to search for Science "&" Technology. This compounds the discoverability issue and makes the category even worse for developers. We need Game Development back.

It's a simple change but it can help build a lot of new communities on Twitch. It can also make more money for indie devs and Twitch at the same time. At the end of the day I feel incredibly lucky with the success we've had on Twitch. Because of this platform and our community we will never need a publisher or investors. We get to own 100% of our studio.

I want that replicated for game devs that come after us.

This thread was posted publicly on Twitter and has so far received a very large amount of community support.
https://twitter.com/PirateSoftware/status/1361911034219425792
4,731 votes

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  • 1legacygaming commented  ·   ·  Report

    Twitch, it makes perfect business sense to create a Game Development Category. Don't you want to make the moneyz?
  • BrinduKage commented  ·   ·  Report

    That's an amazing idea ! It's always hard to find game devs in the "Science & Technology" category. Adding a "Game Development" category would be so helpful!!
  • KhronosVII commented  ·   ·  Report

    4 Thousand votes, you'd really expect Twitch to comment on this, wouldn't you?
  • CreatorsRequiem commented  ·   ·  Report

    Remember all those people saying "Twitch's lack of browsability is going to be its downfall"? Well this is definitely one of those cases. Make it easier to be discovered. Less searching and scrolling. Streamers only have a few seconds to get someone interested and most of that time is wasted scrolling or searching for the category and tags. It's a great chance to promote up and coming games/ devs to those who may had never know game development was happening on twitch. We have other tags like 3D modeling and Music production. We can use those in conjunction with the category for more specific results. That's how tags should be used. Not to sort out everything because a category generalizes the content.

  • Krinon1 commented  ·   ·  Report

    ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ. Gib Game Dev Category
  • DeadRobotDev commented  ·   ·  Report

    When I was looking to see if anyone had covered this, I found an article from 2014 when Game Development was initially added as a category.

    djWHEAT said: "The idea of having a section for game developers was suggested and it resonated with the audience, so that inspired us to add it as a category."

    That is still very much the case, as proven by the votes here, the initial thread on Twitter, and everyone who has been fighting for this since it was removed. So where is the category?
  • Usquebaugh67 commented  ·   ·  Report

    The irony of this situation is that the whole reason Twitch was created in the first place was because the live streaming of gaming and gamers took off so quickly in popularity it required it's own streaming site. Gaming is literally the reason we are all here today on Twitch either as viewers or streamers (or both). Why not give the opportunity to the actual game developers and make a category so all of those involved in development can be recognized as well? There are many streamers who are on Twitch currently and many who have left who would come back if there was a category/home for them on Twitch.

    Also, please go the extra mile on this one. We want the Game Development category back again. It's been well over four months since this was posted on uservoice and even longer since it was retweeted on Twitter by GoPirateSoftware. There is no apparent reason why it should not be done as it will benefit everyone including Twitch. Please add the category today and make the entire community happy. No more waiting.

  • krux702 commented  ·   ·  Report

    So does Twitch just not look at this. Why is this site here if they're going to ignore it?

  • smithmule commented  ·   ·  Report

    Twitch is too busy adding hot tub streams to even look at this.
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