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1. Change the Game Developer badge instead of deprecating it

   On October 21st, 2024, Twitch will be deprecating the Game Developer badge. This badge has, in my opinion, a pretty important benefit for both game developers and streamers alike: It weeded out viewers that would pose as game developers.

   I can't tell you how many times I heard from streamers that they were glad our studio had badges verifying who we were, as they often had new viewers claim they worked on our game. Knowing that the badge existed made them skeptical, especially as they'd seen us in their chat before.

   With the badge's upcoming removal, this opens the door for more impersonation and will make it difficult for developers to interact with the communities that play their game. I have not seen Twitch provide a reason as to why the badge is being removed yet, so I can only assume as to the reason. If the issue is that it takes resources to verify studios -- which currently is quoted to taking one business week -- the reasonable solution is to extend the timeframe for verification, or to hire a few seasonal employees to help with the verification.

   If the issue is that the badge is global and can cause confusion for streamers when game developers watch streams of other games, then instead of deprecating the badge, I'd like to propose two different solutions.

   1) Recategorize it as a different badge than "Global", and then only allow it to be used in streams where your game is being played; or

   2) Leave the badge as-is, except when you're watching someone play your game, the badge should change in some way (e.g. turn golden) to highlight that you are a developer for that game. (idea from @HardwiredStdios on Twitter)

   Either of these solutions would be a better way of ensuring streamers can reliably identify actual developers of the game, while also preventing confusion when those developers watch streams in other categories. Interacting with streamers is incredibly important to us as it gives us that extra line of feedback being able to chat with people playing our games in real-time, and removing the badge will only cause skepticism in those interactions.

   Thank you for your time.

   On October 21st, 2024, Twitch will be deprecating the Game Developer badge. This badge has, in my opinion, a pretty important benefit for both game developers and streamers alike: It weeded out viewers that would pose as game developers.

   I can't tell you how many times I heard from streamers that they were glad our studio had badges verifying who we were, as they often had new viewers claim they worked on our game. Knowing that the badge existed made them skeptical, especially as they'd seen us in their chat before.

   With the badge's upcoming removal, this opens the door… more

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   5 comments  ·  Global Badges  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
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   Deferred  ·  AdminJon Bulava (Developer Relations, Twitch) responded

   Thank you for your detailed submission and articulating the usefulness of the badge for game developers. We agree with the sentiment and additional context can be found in the deprecation announcement. You are correct that there was an increase in requests to verify organizations. This process is also used to gain access to other features such as Drops campaigns and game analytics. Product updates to limit requests for a global badge and remove confusion, such as enabling the badge only on a matching category as you mention, will take considerable time while continuing to block new developers from using these organization features. This change will reestablish the 1-week SLA for organization requests and an improved implementation of the game developer badge can be considered in the future while we enable new game developers to onboard.