Twitch unveils Squad Stream so four streamers can share one livestream | Gaming News

Twitch CEO Emmet Shear announced at the company’s annual TwitchCon event today that four streamers will be able to share a single stream in a new feature dubbed Squad Stream.

That lets multiple people share a stream in multiplayer games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 or whatever you feel like playing together.

Twitch is also launching new moderator tools that let streamers control their chat during streams, helping them to keep trolls under control. These toxic people have been difficult for streamers and the platform to eliminate.

By clicking on someone’s Twitch username, moderators will now be able to see how long that person has been on Twitch, view chat messages that person has sent in the channel, and see the number of timeouts or bans that account has received in that channel. Mods can also leave channel-specific comments about each user to share with the channel owner and other mods. This information will help mods make better decisions while moderating that channel’s chat. It will be available in January.

Shear also said Twitch Rivals is launching as a new way for streamers to challenge each other in matches while viewers can see the action on the streamer’s own channel, allowing that streamer to benefit from the views.

To date, Twitch has hosted 55 of these competitive gaming events featuring Partners, Affiliates, and their friends, awarding over $5 million in prizing, including $2 million during this summer’s Fortnite Summer Skirmish.

Streamers who participated in a Twitch Rivals event saw an average of 20 percent more viewers and 90 percent more ad revenue on event days and 10 percent more revenue from subs nearly a month later. In 2019, Twitch Rivals will more than double to 128 events, with the program expanding to cover more games and genres, such as MOBAs and even single-player RPGs, with millions of dollars in prizes.

Twitch also built its own game with Harmonix. Twitch Sings is a brand new karaoke-style game designed for streamers on Twitch. Built from the ground up for live streaming, it has hundreds of songs and features that streamers and their communities can use to make amazing, one-of-a-kind performances together. In chat, viewers can request songs, cheer to activate light shows on stage, and give their favorite streamers challenges to tackle. TwitchCon attendees will be able to test the game on the expo floor, with a closed Beta starting later in 2018 on PC, iOS and coming soon on Android. Twitch streamers can register at link.twitch.tv/sings to be notified as more space opens on the closed Beta list.

Judging from some of the reactions, things like Squad Streams going to be popular.

OMG YESSSS SQUAD STREAMS #TwitchCon pic.twitter.com/S0wrh0qLpB

— MissClick????TwitchCon (@_MissClick_) October 26, 2018