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
Hi everyone!
We’re happy to announce that thanks to your feedback, we have created the Software and Game Development category! Thank you for all of your support around this idea.
Category: https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Software%20and%20Game%20Development
Read more on the Twitch developer forum: https://discuss.dev.twitch.tv/t/software-game-development-a-new-streaming-category/33364
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thefinalsara commented
This would be so great for developers!
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bac0npl4ys commented
Rise up
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PivotDeerPup commented
Please Twitch, this is a much needed addition.
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hiegiso commented
Hiegiso was here
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CartoonJessie commented
As someone new to game dev, I would welcome this!
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HeffU commented
As others have already commented, there is definitely interest in watching gamedev, but the discoverability is extremely bad unless you're already aware that it exists. A change like this would do a lot to bring back some decent ways for new viewers to find their way there.
The rare few times a viewer comes into a gamedev stream that didn't already come from another such stream, they are happily surprised to see that gamedev live on twitch was even a thing, and they didn't know about it at all beforehand.
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nopogo_tv commented
I made a vote back in march of 2020 saying something similar (programming should be seperated from science & tech) https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/310210-discover-browsing-and-searching/suggestions/39899215-programming-should-be-a-seperate-category-from-sci So I 100% support this
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Dramakins commented
I would really love this. When it comes to Game Dev, a lot of us wear many different hats. Where we switch between art and programing on the fly. You don't want to feel like you have to keep swapping directories. It would be nice to stay in one place no matter what you're doing. Programming, art, music, ect. It could also bring a lot of visibility to upcoming games. This feels like an easy win.
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intensusroy commented
It will be nice to have this kind of category on Twitch, it's a great stream community so maybe it's time to start thinking to grow on other areas besides gaming.
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Outfrost commented
I always struggle to pick the category and the tags that will make my stream most discoverable to those who would most want to see it. Is it Science & Tech? Am I doing Art? Is it maybe Music? Is game design discussion Just Chatting?
I obviously put in the gamedev tag (to get mixed in with about 200 non-English-speaking or clueless Call of Duty and Fortnite streamers), but then do I also put in Software Development if I'm coding? How Level Design vs how Programming is this? Do I pick Educational because I like explaining what I do and helping others solve their problems, or LGBTQIA+ because I'm an ally and want to steward a friendly space? What if more people browse tags like Engineering, Design, or Original Work?
Gamedev needs to be a category of its own. Speaking of which, why does Unreal Engine have a category AND a tag, but nothing else does? Tags for Unity, Godot, GameMaker Studio, RPG Maker, and a host of other tools I can't remember right now.
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luna6667 commented
That, and Thor (the owner of pirate software) actually already tried that, but it was rejected by a human moderator.
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fluffycritter commented
@PorfiroPartida Unfortunately Twitch gets the game list from an external wiki (GiantBomb's I think?) and I don't think they'd take kindly to a game being created for that purpose.
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PorfirioPartida commented
Here's an idea... how bout creating a game, a published video game called
"Game Development". You can list games, right? -
AdamCYounis commented
I think the biggest gripe I have with the status quo is how tags have been appropriated to mean "smaller categories", rather than "modifiers".
Tags make sense when they're adjectives like "Family Friendly", "Educational". If I'm playing a game, the category says what game I'm playing and the tags describe the way it's being played, "Speed run", "Any%" or "Glitchless", "First Playthrough", "Competitive", "Casual".
The only time Game Development works as a tag is if the developers of League of Legends were streaming under LoL category while working on the game.
But Game Development is the content, here. It's not a modifier that applies intuitively to any other category, or even in conjunction with other tags.
I can be a "Stardew Valley ASMR streamer".
I can't be a "Stardew Valley ASMR Game Developer" unless I'm literally Eric Barone working late, trying not to wake his parents. -
fluffycritter commented
I hadn't realized that this category had disappeared. It seems ridiculous that this wasn't always here, even back when "Creative" was the (fairly useless) catch-all.
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Seekaplayer commented
EDIT: I made a post on social media about this and it's awesome seeing the upvote ticking up! w00t! Keep it up, everybody!
Twitch is primarily known as a Game Streaming platform (I know it's got other stuff as well but a big portion is Games) but we don't have a Game Development Category?.
Game Development alone can be broken into Programming, 3D Modeling, Audio Editing and, more. It just makes sense for Twitch to have a Game Development Category.
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MatKlacar commented
PLEASE
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LostHamster commented
This is very much needed!
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GlennFromDiscord commented
This sounds like a great idea. I follow a lot of game dev streams and they really deserve their own category.
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Lord_Azaezel commented
Game dev deserves to be treated with respect; moreso than Esports since the game devs create the games you love! Show respect to these people who put in so much work. Their time, and even their own money is spent on such projects.