It works like this: you type the word “cheer” along with a number in chat during a stream, and that will cause a colorful, shape-shifting emote to appear alongside your message.
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“Cheers” is a new emote that is powered by new Twitch microtransactions called “Bits”. 100 Bits goes for $1.40, while 25,000 bits sells for $308.
With Cheering, Twitch has created its own sub-economy that gives fans more ways to throw a broadcaster a few bucks during an especially exciting or hilarious moment.
‘Our community loves to support their favorite broadcasters, and Cheering using Bits provides a fun new way to level up their appreciation, ‘ claimed Emmett Shear, Twitch chief executive officer, of the launch. You’ll see a shiny emoticon show up based on your donation, after which you can pat yourself on the back for supporting your streamer of choice.
Cheering allows another way to support that with the caveat that for you to cheer on your favorite folks, you have to purchase Bits.
Users will be able to purchase bits in packages and it’s up to them if they want to award a streamer an entire package or send them emotes individually throughout the course of the stream. Donating more leads to cooler, more animated emotes – for example, dropping one bit produces a plain gray triangle, while spending 10,000 creates a wildly animated red star.
Unless you’re a Twitch partner, there’s now no way to earn money on Twitch, unless you manage to secure sponsors, so this new feature is a great way to get much smaller streamers the chance to have their fans tip their hard work.
As Cheering is built inside the chat, the streamers and moderators will quickly verify if the actions and messages in their channel are displaying a correct image to their community.
Twitch will make cheering available for all partners as soon as possible, however, there isn’t an ETA for the time being. Twitch notes that it is working on adding more local payment methods and currency support in the future.
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Right now, around 30 or so popular streamers are participating in the Cheering program, which Twitch are calling a “limited beta”.
