Twitch gets ‘Squad Streaming’ and more extensive moderation tools

Online video streaming platform Twitch will have the option to combine multiple streams of the same game and team into a single stream. In addition, the moderation tools are also being expanded to combat undesirable behavior more effectively.

Twitch announced the news at its own annual TwitchCon trade show, where it held a keynote address. The function to combine multiple streams into a single stream is called Squad Streaming and is, for example, a godsend when watching a game of a battle royale game. In the presentation you can see that a button appears titled ‘watch squad’, which causes up to four streams to appear in the window. Apparently the size of the streams can also be tinkered with. Later this year, the feature will be introduced to a select group of streamers as part of a first test.

The new moderation tools make it possible to see how long an individual viewer has been on Twitch, what messages they have sent in a chat, and how many timeouts and bans they have received in the past. This is to make it easier for moderators to see what measures should be imposed on a nuisance user. These additions are expected in January of next year.

Twitch is also partnering with Rock Band developer Harmonix. Together, the two companies are developing Twitch Sings, a streaming karaoke game. Users can vote for songs and also give the streamers special challenges and control light effects in the studio by means of cheers.

Furthermore, Twitch announced that the viewership at any time will not fall below 1 million viewers, which is a third more than last year’s 746,000. The platform has posted a summary of all further upcoming additions to its site.