Non-affiliated Twitch streamers can earn money through game sales

Streamers on Twitch who are not affiliates and belong to the affiliate program can now earn money by selling games and in-game items that come from their channel page.

When a member of Twitch’s affiliate program plays a game that is also sold on Twitch, viewers of the stream will see a ‘buy button’ on the appropriate channel page on Twitch. When a game or in-game item is purchased in this way, the streamer will receive five percent of the purchase amount.

Twitch introduced the option to sell games in the spring, but until now only partners have been able to use it. This option is now more widely available. In the future, affiliates will also have the option to let viewers subscribe to their channel, but this is not possible for the time being. Twitch says this feature is still being worked on.

The affiliate program was introduced by Twitch in April. This group consists of streamers who have broadcast at least 500 minutes in seven different sessions over the past thirty days and who managed to reach an average of three simultaneous viewers. There must also be at least 50 followers. If these conditions are met, you will receive an invitation from Twitch to join the program.

Before the option to sell games became available to affiliates, they only had the opportunity to monetize the ‘Cheering with Bits’ feature. Twitch introduced this last year and this feature was only available to partners until April 2017. The feature allows viewers to purchase certain emoji, aka Bits, in their own currency. They can then use it in the chat. If they do this, the streamer gets 1 cent for every Bit used.