Twitch is certainly no stranger to trying new things to cater to its massive streaming audience. It’s introduced new music services, teamed up with global broadcaster Boiler Room for a channel devoted to underground music, and even had a quirky – yet successful – partnership with Old Spice that put users in control of a man’s actions in the wilderness for three days.
Now, it looks to expand its community with even more possibilities. The company has announced a new program called “Twitch Specials,” a promotional program that concentrates on unique content made with Twitch community in mind.
The first partner on board with the project is SFX Entertainment, the leading producer of global live events, media and entertainment content focused around electronic music culture. It will partner with the channel to showcase the forthcoming Spring Awakening Music Festival, which starts today and runs through the whole weekend. The Festival features a who’s who of electronic artists, including Diplo, Tiesto and Afrojack, among others.
This is the latest move by the company to offer something outside of the routine game programming, following previous promotions where it partnered with HBO for a Silicon Valley event as well as an advanced premiere of USA’s forthcoming pilot for Mr. Robot.
The company admitted that there was a challenge in showcasing unique content to fit the interests of the community, without forgetting the core values that made it so popular to begin with. “While the community response to our music and television experiments have been very positive, the context of their presence isn’t always clear given our predominant focus on gaming,” said Jonathan Simpson-Bint, Chief Revenue Officer for Twitch. “By turning these types of entertainment offerings into a branded promotional program called ‘Twitch Specials’, we are adding that desired clarity for the community and formalizing a new way in which major brands can work with our influencers directly for the benefit of the community.”
Although new interests will be part of the “Twitch Specials” program, the company will continue to keep gaming involved somehow, including actors and musicians discussing their game skills. At the same time, promotions will still be tied in with participating brands, providing monetization opportunities for particular community members.
Other “Twitch Specials” haven’t been revealed just yet, but the company should have more events revealed on its blog soon. In the meantime, gamers will get more than enough from Twitch coverage between its extensive live streaming schedule at E3 2015 next week, and TwitchCon, which takes place this September in San Francisco.