YouTube Gaming is adding Sponsorships today for eligible content creators after successful tests with the feature to a limited amount of streamers. Fans can pay for these Sponsorships, at $5 a month, to support their favorite channels. In return, they’ll unlock custom badges, emojis, and potentially special chat rooms just for Sponsors.
This is similar to Twitch‘s Subscriptions. which also gives viewers the choice to pay a monthly fee to their favorite streamers in return for perks like unique emotes, badges, and exclusive chat rooms
Twitch is the most popular site for streaming. It has over 100 million users a month. YouTube Gaming is Google’s answer to it. Although YouTube Gaming doesn’t match Twitch’s popularity yet for streamed content, adding more ways for content creators to make money could attract more streamers. For example, YouTube said that the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional team Rocket Beans earned 1,500 sponsors in its first day during tests.
Sponsorships are also replacing YouTube’s Paid channels. These let creators set up a pay barrier between viewers and their channels starting at $1 a month, but YouTube said in a press release sent to GamesBeat that less than 1 percent of users today use it.