New Categories: The Creative and IRL categories have exploded in growth since they were introduced in 2015 and 2016, respectively. We’ve heard from many viewers that these categories have such a wide variety of content that it’s difficult for them to find streamers around the topics they’re interested in. Starting today, we’re replacing IRL and Creative with 10 new categories designed to help viewers find streamers around things they love from Art, to Science & Technology, to Talk Shows and Podcasts, and beyond. These new Categories will appear in the Browse directory, which shows gaming and non-gaming in a single view as well as in search results.
Streamers who previously streamed under IRL or Creative will need to select a new category when they broadcast in order to appear in the Browse directory and in search results. To learn more about the categories streamers can choose, please visit the Discovery Updates Site.
We know that introducing Tags, replacing IRL and Creative with new Categories, and discontinuing Communities impacts streamers and their workflow. We’ve received a lot of feedback since we announced these changes in early August. Based on those conversations, we’ve broadened the Tags available in this first release, included descriptions with Tags to make them clearer for streamers, and renamed the ”Hobbies & Crafts” category to “Makers & Crafting” to better reflect our professional makers. We also recognize that streamers were using our Communities feature to find others who shared their identity and interests, and we are working with those communities to build solutions for them.
Our plan is to continue to adapt these tools to ensure that Tags and Categories work for everyone on Twitch. If you have feedback for us, please let us know here. We’re continuing to invest in new ways to improve discovery, and if you want to follow along, visit the Discovery Updates Site.
Website: LINK
