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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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  • djv808 commented  ·   ·  Report

    This category will definitely be awesome to have. It’s hard to find fame devs because it gets buried in science and technology

  • AlmightyGamesDev commented  ·   ·  Report

    if(categoryList.Contains("Game Development")) { happiness = true; }

  • Virus610 commented  ·   ·  Report

    A lot of people who actually STREAM game development don't even realize how many others are out there doing it, because it's so hard to find.

    We've got the community split across Science & Technology, Art, and Just Chatting, if not more.

    Please help us centralize the community with a proper category!

    We could even make use of game development specific tags, like Unity, Unreal, Godot, etc.
  • BlackMageUK commented  ·   ·  Report

    Please i feel like so many people are missing out.

  • IrishJohnGames commented  ·   ·  Report

    Please yes. Science and technology is burying a huge number of indie game devs. The Game Development tag is simply not enough.
  • Knilink commented  ·   ·  Report

    If any game that gets released can have its own category, I don't understand why this isn't already thing. With this subject matter currently being categorized under Science & Technology, anyone actually interested in watching true game development has to wade through countless irrelevant channels that have nothing to do with the making of a video game.
  • FirstCrimson commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is a gaming site, where's the game development section? I feel like it should be an obvious space that could easily get some proper exposure.
  • RicardoRGVgamedev commented  ·   ·  Report

    Gamedev is such a very different matter from generalist tech stuff. Gamedev Twitch community is, despite being diffuse and sparse, an awesome, inclusive community. It clearly needs to be joined in one category. It's really difficult to find new gamedev people, specially when you're still in your student days — when you need it the most!
  • Gartleon commented  ·   ·  Report

    Game developers need to be easier to find it makes more people like myself consider streaming as it is right now hidden and I have to go out my way to find developer's and sometimes it doesn't work correctly.

    For example if I am streaming me working on a game, and I am doing programming and then I go and create some art for my game do I have to change category? Game development will stop all this confusion and help people be discovered
  • FrutyYogrt commented  ·   ·  Report

    By making it more accessible, it would be an amazing opportunity for younger people to get an insight into all the different aspects of game development.
  • skpacman commented  ·   ·  Report

    There's one for art, music, even asmr, but not game dev? Twitch, get with the times.
  • Usquebaugh67 commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is a simple and necessary change that needs to happen Twitch.

    Currently, these hard working game developers are being buried amongst other unrelated streams in the catch all Science and Technology category including claw machines, coin pushers, people trying to profit from their pets and the nature in their backyards and weed growers. There are even more obscure examples which I will not mention as well.

    The Game Developers that I watch work tirelessly to build their communities, share their projects and work towards creating successful indie development studios. They interact with their communities and can also be a source of knowledge and insight into game development and that industry which is not normally accessible to most people. They can and do inspire others to follow that dream as well too. Twitch would benefit from their success (both present and future) by giving them their own category. A specific Game Development category will lead to more exposure for the devs, which would lead to more interactions of what I mentioned above, which should lead to more subs and ad revenue (for the streamer and Twitch).

    The Game Development category should have been created yesterday. As a studio, it gives them all the benefits listed above. As a viewer/consumer of Twitch media, it gives me the opportunity to not only watch the Game Devs I currently watch but make it easier for me to seek out newer and smaller studios to help support. I could also follow the *entire category* with a single click of a button which automatically gives ALL Game Dev streamers exposure to new viewers. Twitch benefits from all of this with good PR and the additional opportunities for revenue and making it easier for their viewers to find streams they actually want. Not a single person loses from making this happen.

    Make it happen Twitch!
  • lemonish commented  ·   ·  Report

    Yes please! This would be great visibility for indie devs and I just plain like watching them work.
  • CarlosEmanuelMartins commented  ·   ·  Report

    It would be nice, The science and technology category is like a heaven in twitch were you can actualy find and connect with cool people doing cool things just cuz its fun.

    Protecting this place and supporting the communitys that use it like: Game devs, programmers and business people would be really cool.

    Above all we need to remove animal Cams, weed growth and other 24 hours streams that clutter the space.
  • AudibleSilence commented  ·   ·  Report

    I would love to see both of these changes for making game dev a category and for renaming s & t to S and T for search optimization!

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