[Lucid:]

My problem with live streams....is that I never seem to be able to catch people when they're actually live!

At work, though, we have quite a few clients wanting to test out doing promotional work on Twitch. My boss is obsessed with getting a clients' game to the #1 viewed spot, which is a great goal but not too terribly realistic, especially if it's a tournament day for League of Legends.

I personally think that the games that do the best on Twitch are skill-based games or games with high interactivity potential. Being able to see games played at a top level, similar to real sports, is the big reason why games like League, Hearthstone, and Counterstrike are popular.

Slow-paced games that have a lot of potential for audience interaction are also really good, but they seem to still be catching on and it depends a lot more on the streamer than the game. I watched a stream of Beyond Two Souls when it came out, and the guy playing it took audience feedback into account when choosing each plot choice, and I thought that was really neat.

I think the biggest thing, though, is replayability. When you look at the top games streamed on Twitch, they are almost all games with mutiplayer and/or round mechanics instead of a story/plot. League, Hearthstone, Dota, WoW PVP, Counterstrike, CoD, they all have rounds and competitive mastery. Minecraft is an endless game, which also ensures that it stays fresh and interesting to watch over thousands of hours. Other games in the top are new releases or flash trends (TwitchPlaysPokemon, anyone?), but I think Sims 4 fits the same niche as Minecraft for being an endless game that is different every time and different between each individual streamer.

So yeah, that's my two cents (or maybe it's more like 5 dollars at this point?). I don't claim to be an expert, but for my job I have spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a game work on Twitch.

I also think it's cool that Amazon bought Twitch and I hope it gets some sweet new features.