Host Mode canceled – Streamer Gronkh explains the loss
The streaming platform Twitch is dropping one of its most famous features, the host mode. Now streamers like Gronkh explain why this is a big loss.
Braunschweig – There will probably be chaos at the Twitch headquarters at the moment. On September 6, Amazon’s company announced that the popular hosting feature would soon be dropped. The feature allows streamers to show other live streams on their channel while offline. A number of Twitch streamers do not like this decision at all and flood the streaming platform with outraged comments and tweets. Erik “Gronkh” Range also railed against the planned deletion of the hosting feature on Twitter and wants streamers to have more decision-making powers.
| Full name | Eric Range |
| Known as | gronk |
| Date of birth | April 10, 1977 |
| Place of birth | Brunswick |
| Followers on Twitch | 1.5 million (as of September 2022) |
| Followers on YouTube | 4.92 million (as of September 2022) |
Twitch: Hosting feature will be deleted – These are the reasons of the platform
What happened? On September 6th there was a Update on the Twitch website. New items have appeared in the FAQ announcing the removal of the hosting feature. As early as October 3, 2022, the “/host” channel command and the “Host Channel” stream manager will no longer be available. Instead, the “Autohost” setting is replaced with “Suggested Channels”, so that you can still show live streams while you’re offline – just not the ones you choose.
The reason: Twitch says the feature was introduced in 2014 to give streamers a new way to share their reach with co-workers. However, it is now being removed because the host mode hinders the interaction between the hosted streamer and the viewer. On the official website, Twitch gives this explanation for the removal of the hosting feature.
“We made the decision to remove the feature because the experience it delivers to viewers doesn’t match their expectations when they come to Twitch. Viewers want to interact with a streamer when it’s live, and Host Mode prevents that from happening. Preventing viewers from interacting with the streamer they’re watching also limits growth potential by not being able to make meaningful connections with the to build new viewers.”
Raids remain: While hosting has been a popular way to share your reach, raids are far more popular. This feature allows streamers to send viewers to another channel when they finish their live stream. This can create crazy situations when a streamer is overrun by thousands of viewers. Just recently there was a new viewership record of 3.3 million on Twitch – raiding an ignorant streamer with them would be extremely insane.
Twitch wants to delete popular feature – Gronkh explains why all streamers are upset
Gronkh explains why this is so bad: Twitch’s decision is met with pretty much no support at all. On Twitter alone, countless tweets criticize the deletion of the hosting feature. The German Twitch veteran Gronkh is also stunned and explains why the host mode was a great asset for him. Hosting allows streamers to share their reach with another channel. Whether this is a secondary channel – as in the case of Gronkh – is irrelevant. “I now have umpteen channels that I follow and some of which I have also subbed, which I only discovered through hosting‘ Range wrote on Twitter.
“Let the streamers decide‘ the star streamer demands, adding: ‘or give channels the option not to be hosted“. However, Gronkh thinks the second option is superfluous because the feature is so good that everyone would choose to leave it activated anyway. While the fact that raids remain is a good thing, Gronkh says that his fans often sleep at the end of his streams, so a raid rarely has the desired effect.
Other streamers comment: The entire streaming world seems to have been spooked by Twitch’s decision to remove the hosting feature. Fans and streamers criticize the change on Twitter and ask about the meaning. Some streamers complain that Twitch has been actively working to make the feature as bad as possible. Twitch removed notifications for channel hosting, so fans are said to have been unable to view the hosted channels.
Positive votes: Replacing host mode with suggested channels is a good way for some stakeholders to discover new channels that the streamer probably didn’t even know about. However, expanding the hosting feature would have had the same effect without making a number of Twitch users unhappy. The platform consistently disappoints its users with oddly enforced rules and questionable decisions – just some of the reasons why streamers are fleeing Twitch to YouTube.
Reference-www.ingame.de