[Subscriber Gifting] 🎁 Rewards & Policy Update

Marstead

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May 2, 2018, 11:49:47 AM5/2/18

to Marstead on Twitch

Hey everyone!

Sub gifting launched recently and it's a really cool feature. It allows you to grant subscriber benefits to another viewer for 1 month on your behalf. Since the feature launched, 6 gift subs have been granted on the channel. This is a great mechanism to help out some of our regular viewers who don't have access to Twitch Prime, or to help out existing subscribers who have a financial change and are unable to continue subbing. I wanted to set up a reward structure and policy for handling gift subs, particularly regarding Sub Block.

Gift Sub Rewards

Currently, receivers of a gift sub get all of the Perks of a channel subscriber, including the SP multiplier and monthly SP boost. The person who gifts the sub gets no reward. I would like to give a little something to people who gift subs--nothing major, that's the point of a gift.

Effective immediately, if you gift someone a subscription, your monthly bonus SP will be disbursed as though you increased your subscription level yourself

This bonus will be granted retroactively for the six gift subs already granted so far.

For example, if you currently are getting monthly bonus SP for a $4.99 subscription and you gift 2 subs, you will get monthly bonus SP as though you had a $14.97 subscription
The receiver of the gift will still continue to receive bonus SP as though they had activated the sub themselves

Generally, this means an extra 78 SP will be generated into the economy. This goes to the gift recipient. So please don't panic about inflation!
No other Sub Perks will be doubled up.

Policy Update (Effective 06/01/2018)

Unfortunately, as with Twitch Prime, gifted subs do not renew automatically. This isn't an issue for most Subscriber rewards (SP Multiplier, chat badge, etc) but it can make Sub Block very difficult to schedule if a person who was not previously a subscriber is gifted a sub just once and does not later activate a sub on their own. The Sub Block rotation runs on a long ~2-3 month schedule and so it assumes recurring support.

Starting in June 2018, I will be treating first-time Gift subscribers the same way as first-time Twitch Prime subs

Their subscription will need to reactivate at least once (through any means, including a second gift sub) to join the Sub Block rotation

All other Subscriber Perks will activate immediately

All first-time gift subs granted before June 2018 will continue to function normally and will join the Sub Block rotation immediately
If the recipient of a gift sub has been a subscriber in the past, but their sub lapsed, they are exempt from this policy.

This policy update is meant only to affect a viewer who receives a gift sub and who has never subscribed in the past.

In addition, the Subscriber Perk Continuity Drop policy will kick in for Prime & Gift subscribers after their subscription has reactivated at least once. This policy protects recurring subs from losing perks if it takes them awhile to reactivate their sub, but it isn't meant to provide two months of benefits to a one-time subscriber.

Thanks!

-Dylan ("Marstead")

Marstead

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Feb 20, 2019, 11:43:35 AM2/20/19

to Marstead on Twitch

We've had Sub Gifting available for almost a year, and subscribers have gifted 33 subs! There's a good year-end question of how to handle anniversaries from sub gifting.

I've been keeping track of the total # of sub gifts for each user.

I'll be giving out 1 bonus Sub Block hour for every 12 gifts granted, to simulate the reward for subbing for a full year.

At this point only one subscriber qualifies for this reward, but a few others are getting close.

I'll be handing out the reward once a month when I do the Subscriber Database update. You can see if you have a bonus hour if you check the tooltip on your bank.

Since this will encourage more gifting, I wanted to comment a bit on the process:

Random Gifting: As a general guideline, I would like folks to avoid using the "Random Gifting" feature. Random gifts have a pretty high chance to land on lurkers who aren't participating in chat, or who are only browsing briefly. It can be disarming in such a small channel to have the streamer call you out for a gift sub. If you would like to give a gift, I'd put a huge priority on folks who are participating in chat, or who are return visitors from previous streams--particularly any new viewer who asks about stream systems or interacts with the voting system. The burden of engagement for this channel and community is higher than average on Twitch -- just understanding how the voting or sub block systems work is kind of a pain in the ass. So if anyone appears to be making the effort to grasp that, they are a great candidate for a gift sub! These are the folks most likely to appreciate the gift and keep it running.

Gifting to Patreon Subs: We have several viewers who subscribe on Patreon only. You're welcome to throw a gift Twitch sub to these folks -- it'll increase their SP multiplier and monthly bonus, and give them Twitch sub features like the in-stream chat badge. I would put a higher priority on the sort of new regulars mentioned above. Patreon subscribers will show up in the Sub Block list, so as a shortcut you can check that if you're not sure if someone is getting subscriber perks from Patreon.

Marstead

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Mar 15, 2019, 3:28:30 PM3/15/19

to Marstead on Twitch

In light of the new policy granting +1 Sub Block hour for every 12 gifts granted, I've discussed gifting strategy with a couple viewers privately in DM.

I've decided to start maintaining a Gift Suggestions tab once a month, when I update the Subscriber Database. These are great candidate viewers to send a gift sub.

Good gift candidates are engaged with the community but are not currently subscribed.
Based on their past & ongoing participation, everyone on this list deserves to enjoy the benefits of subscription.
You will be contributing to the community as a whole if you send gifts to these viewers!

As general etiquette, please do not ask gift sub recipients why they are not subscribed, and generally do not discuss the sub status of other viewers.
Gifts are a fun pro-community gesture. They are not a tool to pressure viewers into subscribing or participating.

To build the Gift Suggestions tab, I am looking through all viewers in PiiqPiiq's user database who have appeared in chat at least once in the past 30 days.

There are other viewers and past subscribers who are deserving of gift subs, but have been unable to tune in in the past 30 days.
To keep this a sane task that I can maintain, I am only going to include folks who have tuned in at least once in the past month.

After selecting for recent viewers, I then look at the following values:

Hours Watched
Prior Subscriber
Regular Chatter

I've added these candidates to the new Gift Suggestions tab, including the above stats at the time of update, and the date these viewers first joined the stream.

You should be able to use these links to access it:

I'll be updating this document once every 30 days when I update the Subscriber Database, so double check the "Last Update" column if you think a name is on there in error.

The information on this list is already public by way of Twitch's own list of potential gift sub recipients, the !sp command, in-stream chat badges, and the Subscriber Database.

However, if you are uncomfortable appearing on this list as a gift sub candidate for any reason, please reach out to me via Discord DM or whisper and I will permanently remove your name.

If you are looking to support the stream above and beyond your own subscription, sub gifting is by far the best way to do this!

Marstead

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May 8, 2019, 2:38:04 PM5/8/19

to Marstead on Twitch

Quick gifting policy update!

Targeted recipients of gift subscriptions will now be allowed to join the Sub Block rotation immediately

Previously, gift sub recipients needed to wait for a sub renewal.
Random gift sub recipients still need to renew at least once.
Gift sub recipients who do not respond to my request to add a Sub Block game will also not join the rotation (and auto-bank an hour) until they renew or get back to me.

I'd like to try to restrict this benefit to engaged viewers who receive a gift sub.

To keep sub gifting from clogging the already-slow Sub Block churn, I will be trying to schedule additional Sub Block draws when we have a gift sub in the rotation, if my schedule allows for it.