Monday, May 21, 2018

Top Game Influencer on Twitch, isn't a person its a website!

One of the top influencer's for games on Twitch isn't a streamer or a personality, its a external website.

Influencer marketing is generally getting the word out about a product or a service to a large group of consumers via "Influencers". On Twitch "Influencers" are generally streamers who are payed or sponsored in some fashion to play a video game or show case a product. Streamers who are not paid but are inspired to play games and/or use products they like on their channels are also "Influencers" in some capacity.

Top Games Twitch 2018 May
One major factor on overall influencing on Twitch for video games is the game directory. If a game is on the top slots of the overall directory, more viewership generally trends into those channels featuring said game.


In comes "Gamepedia", which is owned by Amazon, the parent company of Twitch Inc. Gamepedia is promoting Twitch streams across their vast network of crowd sourcing wiki's. Only the top Twitch streams that are of affiliate level or higher get promoted depending on the game. So lets say a Twitch affiliate streamer named "Justin" is playing and streaming Diablo. If no other Twitch affiliate or partners are streaming that game, Justin's channel will be promoted on gamepedia's diablo wiki on the bottom of the content pages.

As people search for Diablo related information on search engines, they will most likely see in the top search engine results, gamepedia related pages.  Once they visit a gamepedia content page, they will be counted as a view for the twitch channel being promoted at the bottom.

gamepedia embedding twitch streams
Here is a example of a Twitch stream being promoted on a gamepedia wiki page at the bottom.

If no one is streaming Diablo, then the current top streamer of twitch will be promoted in that spot.

All of these views from gamepedia add up and directly influence the overall placement of games on the directory.

And here is also another really interesting factor, that many don't really know about or consider. Any  streamer who gets promoted on gamepedia wiki's will be able to see the traffic coming in via the dashboard stats from external sites. If the traffic is pretty substantial why would they switch and play other games? Who is going to say no to thousands of free channel views and viewers automatically coming to your channel?

Update: 7/26/2019 --  Gamepedia has stopped promoting twitch streams as a autoplaying embed on their wiki platform.  Gamepedia is also not part of Twitch/Amazon anymore since the start of this year.

Here is the reason why from MisterWoodhouse from Gamepedia:


Fill free to ask questions or comment below!
Saturday, May 12, 2018

Free Channel Traffic / Free Views

Get free channel traffic to your Twitch stream by knowing about gamepedia's promotional content section!
free views for twitch streams
So your a small streamer on the Twitch platform? Want a way to get some possible free traffic going to your stream? Well here is one way to get some views going into your channel.

Gamepedia is now one of the biggest traffic generators for Twitch Streams

Please note: It's not going to work for all channels, you need at least 10-15 concurrent viewers + to be able to take advantage of it.

Steps
  1. Research Gamepedia and all the wiki's
  2. Figure out what wiki is popular and is promo'ing streams.
    • To know if gamepedia is promoting streams
      • Go to a game wiki
      • Then click on to a content page or a random page
      • Make sure you have adblock off, and then check the bottom for a 'Promotional Content' section, if you see that, a stream should be showing as a embed.
  3. Start playing/streaming that game and if your channel's in the top spot, Gamepedia will feature your stream on all its wiki content pages for that game.
    • During researching phase, check on Twitch to see if many people are streaming the game, less streamers the greater your chance at getting the top spot.
  4. When your done streaming, put the past achieve in rerun and let it run until the next time your broadcasting.
    Update 8/20/2018 Gamepedia now has created a rule out of no where saying any stream that is 24/7 / ReRuns which gets promoted at Gamepedia Wiki's will be banned.
Here is what traffic looks like using my channel's data during the streaming of battletech.



Even though my stream wasn't in the top spot for a majority of the time, it still managed to generate around 5,000 channel views. Every little bit of promotion, views and traffic going to your channel helps out.

If you have any comments or questions fill free to post them up in the comment section below!

**Update on this article**, Gamepedia as of around 7/22/2019 has stopped embedding Twitch Streams on their Wiki Network. They are also not part of Twitch anymore, they were sold off to Fandom / Wikia at the beginning of this year.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Gamepedia is now one of the biggest traffic generators for Twitch Streams

Gamepedia is embedding and promoting Twitch live streams on a majority of their wiki content pages.

Back in August of 2016, Amazon via Twitch Interactive acquired 'Curse, Inc' for a undisclosed amount. Gamepedia was part of Curse's network, a wiki hosting platform dedicated to games and supported by user generated content.

Twitch streams are now being promoted on the wiki network at gamepedia. Depending on the wiki, it will show a Twitch stream as promotional content at the bottom. Only the current top streamer for said game gets promoted in that section.

Here is a example from the battletech wiki on gamepedia that was featuring my stream. Goto the following URL: https://battletech.gamepedia.com/Maneuver

Make sure you have any ADBLOCK'er disabled and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Twitch Embedding - Gamepedia

Screenshot of promotional content section is available, click to enlarge.

If you are a Twitch streamer and want to know if you have received any traffic from gamepedia's embedding it should show up on the stream summery and stats section on the dashboard. Go to the "Where did my views come from?" section to see external views to your channel.





Now for the good and bad news (note this will be my opinion and perspective)

Good
  • Twitch is promoting streamers outside of the platform, 
  • Billions of additional channel views will be generated from this connection.
  • Games with very high traffic wiki's on gamepedia will be higher placed on the overall Twitch directory, leading to more floating users checking out those games. More people viewing, more perception of popularity / hype / bandwagon effects, which may lead to more game sales, increase userbase and community.
  • Ad Revenue will increase for Twitch in whole and for some partner streamers. (But may cannibalize other revenue streams from before?)

Bad
  • AdFill rates will crumble, to much inventory and not enough supply. (This can be turned around with a really super strong marketing team that entices advertisers) If a streamer is depended on advertising revenue, they are going to be taking a hit unless they situate themselves into a game that has high wiki traffic from gamepedia and can hold the top spot.
  • Viewbotting accusations will be on overdrive, which is going to lead to addition reporting posts that admins will be wasting time and energy on reviewing. This can also generate harassment to the streamer from others because they assume fraud is occurring with viewbots.
  • Check my previous post on Embedding, bottom section the downsides and links posted to reactions. I have been a very long time embedder focused channeled, its been a unique road and now others will sadly have to face some of the challenges I had to due to external promotion.
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What is your view on this matter? Please fill free to leave a comment below, good or bad - I would like to know! Thanks

**Update on this article**, Gamepedia as of around 7/22/2019 has stopped embedding Twitch Streams on their Wiki Network. They are also not part of Twitch anymore, they were sold off to Fandom / Wikia at the beginning of this year.