Huge audience, plenty of room to grow
In under a decade, Twitch became the place gamers, creators, and fan communities went to hang out live. Millions of people showed up to chat, cheer, and play along in real time.
The audience was there and the energy was wonderful. The business side hadn't caught up yet. That was our job.
The context
Lots of attention, not enough ways to use it
By late 2020, more than 15 million people were showing up on Twitch every day. Like a lot of fast-growing platforms, it had shipped features faster than it had figured out how to make them pay.
- Big, engaged, real-time audiences
- Thriving creator communities
- Interactive and shopping features most people hadn't discovered
- A developer platform with a lot of untapped upside
The role we played
Platform partner, experience designer, occasional hype crew
We started with Twitch in 2018 and ended up working across product, developer, marketing, and events. The brief was simple: get more developers building Twitch Extensions, and help interactive streams earn money for developers, creators, and Twitch.
We learned quickly that you can't explain a feature to this audience. You have to let them play with it.
What we built together
From watching to playing along
- Repositioned the Extensions program so developers and creators could see what was in it for them
- Overhauled the developer website and rebuilt the developer portal
- Designed and launched new interactive Extensions
- Built onboarding that got developers up and running faster
- Supported big partner integrations across sports, gaming, and live events
- Made the videos, scripts, and platform marketing that brought people in
Most of it was developer experience: helping people use the new Extensions on the platform and right inside the Twitch UI. That work touched Extensions, Platform Marketing, Developer Experience, Twitch Partnerships, Audience Marketing, and Global Events.
Activation at scale
Where digital met physical
The big partner campaigns, with the NBA G-League, PUBG, and the Tokyo Olympics, needed strategy, UI, and events that people would line up for.
- Token-operated platform demo machines
- A claw-drop arcade machine full of Twitch merch (the line never got shorter)
- Live experiences at TwitchCon and other events around the world
The outcome
A more playable, more profitable platform
- More developers building Extensions
- New ways to earn that didn't mess with the community's vibe
- High-profile integrations with the NBA G-League, PUBG, and the Tokyo Olympics
- A story creators, developers, and partners could all get behind
Through all of it, Twitch still felt like Twitch. That mattered to us more than anything.
The takeaway
On a live platform, joining in is the whole point.
The best communities give people something to do. Design for play, and the value tends to follow.
