[Voting System] 🔮 Spheres (Twitch's New Channel Points)

[Marstead]

Howdy folks!

I've transitioned most announcements & feature discussions to Discord, but I'll continue to use the Google Group for long-form posts like this one. I'll link directly to these posts in Discord, so if you wanted to unsub from this mailing list, you'll still get important notifications if you're in Discord.

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Twitch recently released Channel Points, their take of the common loyalty points programs found in bots like the one we use, DeepBot. My first reaction was "Meh, SP works fine by itself", but upon thinking about it further, Channel Points have many advantages over bot loyalty programs:

How Channel Points Work

Channel Points are similar to bot loyalty points in that they are disbursed at 5-minute time intervals. There are a bunch of other ways to earn points:

The "Special Bonuses" are from a wiggling chest that spawns every 15 minutes that you are watching actively. Clicking it releases the points (100 points for subscribers). Viewers can click the points icon in chat to redeem rewards set up by the streamer.

A subscriber who watches every 4-hour live stream and clicks all 16 chests that spawn in that period can earn a total of 2560 Channel Points per day. I'll be calibrating rewards around that number. 

When reruns pick back up, Watch Streaks should be impossible to achieve, as Twitch does not distinguish between a live stream and a rerun (Not enough time passes from the end of one to the start of another to contribute to the streak).

I'm manually disabling the points system during Reruns for now, as the bonus chest creates an insane influx of points if left enabled (More on that below). For viewers who do not want to be hassled with clicking the wiggling chest, use these browser plugins to automatically click it for you:

AUTO CLICK THE CHEST (Chrome)

AUTO CLICK THE CHEST (FireFox)

I am encouraging use of the auto clicker because I don't want viewers to feel like they need to be paying a ton of attention to stay competitive.

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Channel Points Pros

• Ease of Use: Channel Points are integrated directly into Twitch with on-screen graphics that help users understand what they are and how they work. SP require you to have done at least a bit of optional reading to grok.
• Familiarity: Most Twitch channels have access to Channel Points now, so Twitch viewers understand how they work. Not every streamer uses a custom bot's program, and those that do all have different commands and systems.
• Tracks Watching: Bot programs can only assign points based on checking if you're logged into IRC/Chat. Twitch's points only award when the player is running and you are contributing to the view count. This is a major advantage.
• Introduces Viewers to Stream Systems: One of this channel's biggest exposure hurdles is getting new viewers to check out our many channel systems like the Voting Spreadsheet & Sub Block. Channel Points can tip new viewers off to these systems and link them to the FAQ to grasp how they work.

Now, I don't want to convert the voting system to Channel Points -- and even if I wanted to, I couldn't. The Voting System is incredibly complicated and there are simply not enough tools for Channel Points to use them in the same way. If Channel Points looks like a major feature Twitch intends to support (like Bits or Gift Subs) and not a throwaway idea that will be sunset in a year (like Events & Premieres), it's possible they will expand it to allow more customization and, more importantly, API access to point totals for bots. Until that happens though, don't worry about SP going anywhere.

There are some problems with Channel Points right now, that I'm hoping might be addressed with future updates:

Channel Points Cons

• Earn Rates are Not Customizable: The earn rates for points are all over the map, and streamers have zero control over them. Normally that'd just mean streamers would have to calibrate their reward costs accordingly, but the difference between an "efficient" point-earner and an inefficient one is massive in this system. (With 24/7 Reruns, an efficient earner can get 5 times as many points as someone who just watches the Live stream)
• I Hate the Wiggling Chest: There's a special "active viewer" bonus chest that spawns every 15 minutes. Clicking it grants nearly double the amount of points a viewer would also gain passively in those 15 minutes, which is insane. There are a lot of reasons I don't like the chest, but the big one is that I don't want viewers to feel like they need to be clicking things in the stream constantly in order to keep up with other viewers.
• Reward Redemption is Completely Manual: Without any API to hook into, there's no way to automate custom rewards from channel points. It all goes into a Redemption queue that streamers need to manually process, and there's no way to grant editor access to the queue.

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All of that said, I would still like to take advantage of Channel Points. The pros far outweigh the cons for me, because these Points help to solve one of our biggest problems -- exposure to our cool channel systems. 

I'm going to tentatively call our version of Channel Points Spheres, although that name is subject to change (see branding, below).

First, I wanted to go over the "design space" of Channel Points for this channel; that is, what we could *theoretically* do with them.

Native Channel Points Rewards

All of these rewards are offered natively by Twitch and require no manual redemption process by me. When you unlock them, you benefit instantly. Since they require no work from me, I've enabled the ones I think are relevant for this channel.

• 🙂 24-Hour Emote Unlocks (80 Points): The viewer can choose any emote to unlock for 24-hour across Twitch. I've set them to the lowest possible cost (80 Points).
• 🙃 24-Hour Emote Mods (80 Points): These let you unlock an emote with a modification, like flipping the emote upside down, scrunching it, adding a santa hat to it, etc. These are also set to the lowest possible cost (80 Points).
• 24-Hour Random Emote Unlock: Unlocks a random sub emote. I'd rather let people pick the emote they want, so I have this one disabled.
• Chat Highlighting: This highlights your message in chat. Chat moves slowly enough already that I don't think this one's particularly necessary. The app I use for Chat, Chatty, doesn't do a great job of calling these out any more than just tagging my name (@Marstead). I've disabled it for now, but if I wanted to turn it on later, the minimum cost is 10 Points.
• Send a Message in Sub-Only Mode: We've never had to use Sub Only mode, and I don't think I'd want to activate it anyway. This is disabled.

Potential Custom Channel Points Rewards

I can create an unlimited number of custom rewards, but they all require manual redemption by me via a queue. I've listed all of the rewards that I've already implemented, along with *possible* rewards I could add in the future.

• 🏷️ + Voting Tags: The Tag System has been very successful so far, and tags are very easy for me to support. For regulars, I want Tags to be the the most cost-effective item in the rewards list. As a result, I'll be calibrating every other reward based on the cost of unlocking a Tag. My hope is that most regulars will spend their saved points on Tags. Note that there is no limit to the number of tags one viewer can tag the same game with these -- think of subscriber tag slots as "Permanent Tag Slots" which regenerate when spent, and these tags as temporary until the game wins. As long as the game hasn't reached the tag cap (50% of its HLTB value) you can continue to tag it.

• 🔮 + SP: Tags are technically worth a certain amount of SP, variable based on the current cost of the game and the average amount of SP needed for that game to win the vote. On average, a tag is worth something like 2000 - 4000 SP. Tags are a more "fun" reward than directly converting Spheres to SP, but I still wanted to provide the option. The purpose of the system is exposure to new viewers, so I want to have some cheap options available if they just want to check it out -- a Tag would have to be priced too high for a newbie to access one. My plan is to price SP Conversion so that it is the least efficient/attractive Spheres reward for regulars, so you don't have to feel like saving for another reward represents a lot of lost SP.

• ⭐ + Sub Block Hours: Sub Block hours are very desirable, but they are also very difficult for me to support. I only have so many hours available to stream in a week and I don't want to slow down the Sub Block churn with tons of hours entering the system. Still, I want new viewers to see that Sub Block is a thing (with a link explaining how it works), so I will be adding Sub Block as a very expensive reward. 

• 🎁 + Gift Subs: I've started budgeting for giving out gift subs every two months to regulars with over 100+ hours watched. If I make the points cost of a gift sub suitably expensive, I can offer this as a reward as well if it's priced similarly to the + Sub Block hour reward.

• ⌛ + Bonus Streams: Bonus Streams discount a game by 4 SP, and represent no time loss for the channel (long-term, assuming the game that won the bonus stream also eventually wins the vote). I can include Bonus Streams as a reward to tip new viewers off to their existence by costing them at 4 * the cost of a Tag.

• 🎮 + Add a Game to the Spreadsheet: Viewers could unlock this to bypass an auction and add a game to the sheet. I'm currently close to the limit on the number of Voting System games I can support before I start hitting Google's API call limit, so if I were to implement this, I'd have to be very careful with it. The idea would be that the added game's slot would be deleted when it wins the vote, so it wouldn't be better than the Permanent Game Slots available to subscribers. If I were to add this, I would want it to be one of the most expensive unlocks.

• 🎵 + Unlock a Custom SFX: SFX require a lot of work for me to add and maintain, and I haven't been on top of them in over a year now. If I can find a way to schedule my workflow for them better, SFX are something I could offer through Spheres, but I'd want to make sure I can satisfy any and all existing SFX requests first.

• 📛 + In-Stream Chat Badge: Custom in-stream chat badges are currently a reward for hours watched. Most viewers don't find out they exist until I ping them asking for the design they want. I like these in-stream badges as they help me to identify regulars at a glance. This one would be pretty easy for me to add, the idea would be that if you redeem it, you can increase your custom badge space by an additional 18x18 pixels (without having to wait to the required hours watched threshold). If I add this, it would be to tip off existing viewers to the existence of in-stream chat badges with some text explaining how they work.

• 💬 + Custom !sp Message: I can technically customize the message displayed when you check your !sp. I'm not sure this is something anyone would want, but another way to draw viewers to try checking !sp would be very useful. If I were to add this I would probably make it dirt cheap.

• ✖️ + SP Multiplier: I could offer an option to increase your Sub Multiplier for some period (30 days?) -- the challenge would be in figuring out the appropriate cost compared to just redeeming for SP. Increasing your multiplier by one step is equal to about 3.6 SP per hour, so I would calibrate around that. I'd still want this to be unattractive/inefficient compared to Tags, and this wouldn't be available for viewers with a maxed multiplier ($14.99+ Subscribers).

If you have other ideas for rewards for Spheres, let me know!

The Currently-Deployed Spheres Custom Rewards System

Here's a list of all of the custom rewards in the system as of today, 12/19/2019. I've included the redemption description so you can see how new viewers will be exposed to channel systems through these unlocks.

"Only redeemable once per viewer (lifetime). Gain 100 SP which you can use to vote for the game Marstead plays next! Click the "Vote" panel below the stream for a list of games & vote commands."

The Welcome Package is intended to allow new viewers to vote for any game on the spreadsheet at least once, and be a quick "hook" to buy in to the Voting System. It can only ever be redeemed once. I'm technically only able to restrict redemptions to once per stream, so if anyone does redeem more than one, I'll be keeping a tracker and rejecting subsequent redemptions. Regulars are welcome to redeem this for a free one-time bonus +100 SP.

  

"Type !sp in chat! SP are used to vote for the next awesome game Marstead will play! Click the "Vote" panel below for a list of games, commands, and costs. Click "FAQ" for more info!"

The conversion rate for SP gets better with larger redemptions -- because I have to process redemptions manually, I want to discourage folks from redeeming for small amounts. At the worst conversion rate, a subscriber who watches the entire stream and clicks every "wiggling chest" can get an extra ~20.48 SP per stream. A patient subscriber who waits to redeem the +1000 SP bonus will get about 39 SP per stream, and it will take them about 39 streams to get that exchange rate (nearly two months of saving). This 20 - 39 SP range is pretty close to the go-live bonus, so I don't think this is going to be a huge influx of SP into the system -- especially since Tags are 2-4 times as efficient. I anticipate savvy regulars will wait to unlock tags rather than go for SP.

"Discount the vote cost of any game by 1 SP per vote! Enter the game you'd like to discount when unlocking this. To see how Voting & discounts work, click the "Frequently Asked Questions" panel below!"

I've aggressively costed Tags to be the most cost-efficient reward in the system. A subscriber who watches every stream and clicks all 16 boxes will be able to unlock a tag every ~19.5 streams, or about once per month.

"Marstead will play your game for +1 Sub Block hour! Existing subs will get +1 bank; viewers will be granted a 1-time 1-hour Sub Block stream. To see how Sub Block works, click the "FAQ" panel below!"

I've made the Sub Block hour require something like ~43 streams (~2 months) for a hardcore viewer to unlock. Like I mentioned above, my main reason for including this reward is to showcase Sub Block to new viewers and stress that this is an attractive item. If you're just looking to maximize "schedule influence" then the Voting Tag is the better choice, but for folks who really like Sub Block, I wanted to make sure this was a realistic goal. For comparison, the Sub Block churn rate takes about 3 months now, and subscribers all gain at least +1 bonus hour once per year, so I think 2 months of dedicating viewing (and Spheres not spent elsewhere) is a reasonable cost for Sub Block time.

"Marstead will give a $4.99 sub to you or the viewer of your choice, conferring all the perks (emotes, SP Multiplier, & Sub Block)."

I could probably cost this so it's the same as the Sub Block hour, as that is the biggest hit to my time, but since it's strictly better I decided to make it cost a little more.

"Unlock a 4-hour bonus stream for any game on the voting spreadsheet. This will discount the vote cost for that game by 4 SP! Click the "Vote" panel below the stream to see the list of games."

Unlocking a bonus stream is similar to buying 4 tags, so this is equal to the cost of 4 tags. The only difference here is whether the game gets played early. Some viewers actively don't want games played early, so it's up to you which one you go for. It's mostly here to advertise the existence of bonus streams to new viewers.

Branding

I was using the term "Tag Points" when this post was first published; I've transitioned to "Spheres". It's vaguely Final Fantasy-inspired and unique from other channels, and connects into the origin of "SP" ("Sphere Points", although they are now just called SP). I'm open to other ideas if folks have them, though!

The Future of Spheres

Several viewers have been quick to point out how fickle Twitch has been with new features like this one, and how it's possible it will be completely removed before the year is out, as we saw with Premieres and Events. This system is designed to be scuttled if necessary; I can trivially shut points accrual and redemption off if we need to. The existing Voting System works just fine without Spheres in the mix; this is just meant to be a new way to expose people to our channel systems, and a way for viewers who are able to actually contribute to the View Count to get some bonuses on top of what they get for being in Chat.

I've made an effort to inform the current point rewards and costs by the math, but there's a difference between theory and experiment -- it's possible I've severely under- or over- costed some or all of these rewards. We'll need the actual data to make a call one way or the other. To that end, I may recost or completely remove some or all of these Rewards depending on how they play out in the next couple months. I will do my best to honor existing redemptions or corner case scenarios, so if you think you are being hit particularly badly by a reward removal or recost, hit me up on Discord and we'll try to negotiate a fair compromise.

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I'm excited about this system and I'm hoping Twitch continues to support it with feature updates going forward. Thanks for your patience with me as I figure out how best to use it!

-Dylan ("Marstead")