Are you in the mood to support fighting game streamers (perhaps Level|Up Series, Team Spooky, or VG BootCamp), but all your cash is tied up in pesky Subway gift cards? Well, you’re in luck, because Twitch recently expanded the amount of options community members have to choose from when subscribing to their favorite channels.
This development is a continuation of their new partnership with Xsolla, a “cross-platform payment and billing solution” whose other clients include Valve, Ubisoft, Kongregate, and more. Essentially, they integrate with an existing website or service to give users across the globe access to payment options that suit their needs outside the normal collection of credit cards and PayPal.
Some of these new choices for subscriptions include Bitcoin, MoneyGram, Skrill, Dwolla, a variety of gift cards courtesy of Openbucks, and many more. The whole host of options will be visible when subscribing to channels by way of the More Methods option.
But don’t get too excited. Broadcasters will need to manually opt-in to this service to make it available to their subscribers.
One prominent fighting game streamer in particular, Team Spooky’s Arturo “Sabin” Sanchez, was kind enough to speak to use and provide some insight from the perspective of a producer. His belief is that, despite the high fees attached to some of the options, these should carry at least some benefit to streamers as it will entice viewers who may not have subscribed before the expanded payment methods were made available.
As of now, the entire breadth of benefits and disadvantages to streamers have yet to be made readily apparent, and will remain as such until usage of these new tools becomes more widespread. We may see its use spread over the next few months or remain confined to a small subset of high-profile entertainers; only time will tell.
Source: Twitch