With the latest content update, Palworld included a new base ornament that let you reskin one of your pals. It came with a free skin, with others promised to be on the way.
Everyone expected that this was going to be what a future cash shop would look like — new looks for your pals. Purely cosmetic. I don’t really have a problem with this… if people want to pay money to have a shinier virtual pet, more power to them. Final Fantasy XIV seems to be doing pretty well, and the last time I checked their online store, I didn’t see anything that would give anyone an advantage in a raid or anything like that. The FFXIV endgame is cosplay, always has been.
For a couple of months we’ve been able to give our pink kitty shades, and that’s it. Now, though, they have three new skins available; a golden Relaxasaurus, a Quivern with a sailor hat, and a Chillet with snorkel, mask and tube.
These are very cute, and also free. You just have to watch someone play Palworld on Twitch for an hour on three different weeks.
Fair enough. I loaded Twitch up, searched for a Palworld stream, and started watching. Someone was going through the first hour or so of the game, picking up sticks, making a fire, stuff like that. Then a couple commercials played. Then back to picking up some rocks for awhile. Some more commercials. Automated messages kept advertising the Twitch drop.
I got bored with watching someone stumble around in the dark between commercials, so I put the tab in the background and went on with my day. When I remembered it later, I went back and the streamer had left, but the channel was just playing continual commercials. I got the Relaxasaurus skin, though. I noticed that nobody had commented on the stream in all the time I had been there.
Nobody was actually watching. I’m not even sure the streamer got paid. It reminded me of those dark corners of the web where it’s just pages and pages filled with ads, with little bits of content sprinkled between them. (I kid; it’s not dark corners of the web; I see those pages all the time, every day).
It’s not hard to see who’s the winner in this particular case. I got a new look for one of my Pals, and I did nothing for it. The streamer had to waste some portion of their life making useless content nobody wanted. Palworld had to pay Twitch for this promotion and make the skins. Twitch probably sent some money to the streamer. Just seems like… so much waste.
Every day, millions of hours of content are made for Twitch. Even I do it.1 Blockchain and AI are called wasteful because they use up oodles of power for little reward. Twitch drops seem like that same sort of thing and it’s hard to see who really benefits.
- Mostly to record gameplay so I can write about it later. ↩︎
I don’t disagree with your perspective but seeing it in writing makes me feel that we’ve gotten to the point where the “content creator economy” is — at least to higher level producers like game developers — “too big to fail”, so companies keep doing these drops as a way to keep streamers afloat and interested in the games being produced since it IS free advertising for the game.
Sure, but they could just have us come to a branded website and get a code without having to go through Twitch. I guess they are trying to juice streaming numbers or something. But the content I was seeing was all starting the game over from scratch. The most boring part of the whole game.
Twitch streamers do not get paid for drops. Drops are just enabled on channels streaming to the category.
Personally I like Twitch drops. I’ve definitely stuck around in streams I tuned into for the drops, didn’t intend to but hey new friends! And that’s awesome. I even got back into streaming because of those friends. And others have found ME because of drops. The vast majority will just stick a stream up in a muted tab, yes, I do the same, but it helps with discoverability which is in short supply.
Watching Palworld streams has Twitch putting more high-energy Palworld streams on my landing page. Drops still seem to be their primary focus, but they aren’t just replaying the start of the game and they do appear on camera, so giving them a higher mark for interaction.
I do not watch Twitch, but when there are drops I will start a Twitch channel, mute the tab and forget about it for a few hours, though.
I guess the idea is I’ll be so intrigued by the ads they play before I can actually see the stream, that I’ll stick around? Which seems really weird. Like there are so many ads I never actually see the stream itself. Wouldn’t it make more sense to let you watch 3-5 minutes of the streamer doing their thing and THEN blast you with ads? At least then you’d have the chance to see if you vibe with the streamer or not.
I’ve written about this a few times and have spent many hours with a Twitch tab muted on my browser as I did other things. I am doing so even now for a WoW mount even though I am unlikely to play retail WoW again.
This appears to be very much a response to “high profile streamer plays my game and sale/logins go up” so companies try to prime the pump to get streamers to play their game by doing Twitch drops. Only some certified streamers get the drops, not everybody streaming the game, so far as I can tell. But those streamers get more viewers, at least temporarily, which helps them keep their Twitch Partner status or some such.
The company also pays Twitch for promotion help, so their game gets promoted/suggested more to viewers.
Basically, it is advertising on Twitch and a way to incentivize streams to stream your game.
I have one streamer I watch for EVE Online drops, because CCP is all in on streaming so has drops quite regularly. But sometimes he streams another title with drops, so I get drops for other games. I have downloaded and played at least two solely because I got drops. So, it “worked” I guess.
Hah! Well, we drop the same topic on the same day with somewhat differing opinions. I feel that Twitch drops are there to reel folks back into playing games they haven’t played in a while. Sometimes it does work to prod me to hop back into a game – like the Palworld drops did – just to make sure I got the drops.
But I still enjoy them. The No Man’s Sky drops are usually lots of fun for me because they can go on for many days with tons of rewards – including ships! So it all just depends on what game, what content, and what rewards.
Twitch doesn’t need to be involved, though. Obvs I put the Palworld thing on in a background tab to get the drop, but I’d have just rather they sent me a code or had me go to their marketing page for it. It would have been faster.
I never, ever watch Twitch but I will put it on in the background for drops. It has to be drops I want for a game I play but I will do it. If nothing else, it re-inforces my connection with the game and thereby makes me carry on playing it or at least not forget about it.
I would guess that in terms of a large company’s marketing budget, it’s a relatively trivial spend. I bet it’s cheaper than actual advertising and quite likely just as effective.
It does mean a lot of people were streaming Palworld. Probably just about as many as there were people actually watching it live….
As a follow up, the current WoW Twitch drop campaign requires something I have never seen before. You have to subscribe to get the drop. You have to purchase two month long subscriptions to one of the participating streamers in order to earn the drop, which means paying money to streamers directly.
Wonder how that will work out.
While I was claiming my second Pal skin, I saw a WoW one was going on and was thinking about just claiming that drop, too. Seemed like a nice mount. Knowing now that I would have had to pay, though, kinda turns it from a potential fun item if I subscribed to flat-out paying for it, and I think that is a harder sell.
The mount is just “watch for four hours” but the next one is “subscribe for two months” and that was the limit for me. Again, first time I have seen a Twitch “drop” that was just “cough up some cash!”