Twitch wants users to put their money where their mouths are with ‘Cheering’

By Will Fulton Published April 25, 2023

Twitch is introducing a new feature, Cheering, that provide viewers with a new tool they can use to express their appreciation for their favorite broadcasters on the dominant streaming platform for gamers. Cheers are special chat messages, highlighted with attention-grabbing, animated emotes. They scale up in size and complexity depending on how many Bits — a new, platform-specific currency that users can purchase through Twitch — are spent.

To Cheer, users simply type “cheer” followed by the number of Bits they wish to spend (e.g. cheer10, cheer100, etc). The more bits spent, the louder the Cheer will be. Fans that cheer a lot will earn special badges. Bits can be purchased in bulk for $1.40 per 100 Bits by clicking on the Bits icon at the bottom of the chat window of participating channels.

“Our community loves to support their favorite broadcasters, and Cheering using Bits provides a fun new way to level up their appreciation,” said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear in a press release. “If channel subscriptions are the equivalent to holding season tickets for your favorite sports team, Cheering is like getting a crowd wave started during the game.”

Cheering is currently in beta, available for only select channels, including Bacon_donut, brotatoe, cobaltsteak, cohhcarnage, dansgaming, and dozens more. Third-party integrations from Muxy, TwitchAlerts, Design by Teak, and others will allow partner broadcasters to add channel-specific features such as custom on-screen acknowledgements for supporters’ Cheers. You can read a full list of participating channels on the Twitch blog.

Recommended Videos

Representatives from Twitch suggested that broadcasters would receive a majority share of the revenue from spent BitsDominant streaming platform, but have not yet confirmed this to be the case, or elaborated on what the distribution would be. We will update this story with further details as they are available.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

Gaming

The best fighting game on Switch gets a Cyber Week price cut

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate doesn't need an introduction for most gamers. The series began as a casual fighting party game with the first installment back in 1999 on the N64, but evolved into a full-fledged competitive fighter over the years with nearly 100 playable characters (including DLC content) and even more stages to battle it out with friends.

Whether you're looking to dive into the Smash Bros. world for the first time with the purchase of a new Nintendo Switch this holiday season or are just on the hunt for deals on the classics, the Cyber Week discount on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is definitely worth checking out. You can grab one of the best Switch games out there at Amazon right now for just $50 (a cool 16% discount off the normal price). Seasoned Switch owners will know that discounts on first-party Switch games are few and far between, so this is definitely a deal you'll want to take advantage of — chances are you won't see this game at a better price for quite a while.

Gaming

The Nintendo Switch’s new fitness game punched me into shape

A trainer throws hooks in Fitness Boxing 3.

My body was having a rough week.

The trouble started on Sunday when I somehow managed to injure my foot so badly by simply going for a long walk that I couldn’t put weight on it for two days. I got it working well enough on Tuesday so I could go to a concert, but four hours of standing did a number on my legs. To make matters worse, I had a messenger bag over my shoulder throughout the night, which translated to even more pain by the time I got home.

Gaming

Why I kept coming back to Final Fantasy XIV in 2024

A character sits on a "fatter cat" mount

The MMO genre is overflowing with titles vying for the attention of anyone willing to invest significant portions of their time in a single game. There are no doubt plenty of killer choices you can make based on what type of combat, endgame, and payment model you prefer, ensuring that you'll almost certainly find one that fits you just right. I've been investing off and on in the genre for over two decades, with thousands of hours poured into everything from old, niche titles like Silkroad Online (which I just learned somehow still exists) to worldwide successes like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars.

In recent years, though, I find myself disappointed in various aspects of many popular MMOs, whether it's an overwhelming focus on endgame raiding, too much PVP-centric content, or unfriendly communities that make me cringe when I even glance at the chat. None of that is a problem when I return to Final Fantasy XIV. I somehow feel at peace each time I load up Square Enix's long-running MMO, and it's becoming harder and harder for me to want to venture elsewhere.