When Twitch rolled out its Discovery Feed in April 2024, it was billed as a major step forward — a TikTok-style vertical scroll of livestreams and clips designed to help users find new creators without leaving the platform. But more than a year later, some streamers say it still isn’t moving the needle.
Twitch claims the Discovery Feed is already driving real results. According to chief monetization officer Mike Minton, over half of new viewer video views now come through the feed, and it’s generated around 38 million new creator follows from feed-related playback.
“The key is getting people into communities they want to be part of,” Minton said. “Nearly everybody that’s a potential Twitch viewer has been on Twitch at one point or another, we’ve been very visited over the years.”
But for some creators, those numbers don’t tell the full story.
Creators Say the Feed Isn’t Helping Them Grow
Despite Twitch’s upbeat metrics, several streamers say they’ve seen little to no growth from the Discovery Feed. In interviews with Digiday, three creators said the feature hasn’t helped them bring in new viewers, and Twitch still feels behind platforms like TikTok and YouTube — where algorithms actively surface new content to new users.
Longtime streamer Shaun Bolen said the problem isn’t just about the new feed, it’s about Twitch’s long-standing approach to discoverability.
“With all due respect to new creators, Twitch is and should only be considered a home base,” Bolen said.
“Your channel will not grow. Whether you’ve been featured on the front page for a year straight (as I have), whether you make the biggest, most flamboyant content ever (as I have) — if that content is not blowing up on YouTube or TikTok… you will not grow on Twitch.”
For Bolen and others, cross-promotion is still essential. Despite Twitch’s attempts to improve internal discovery, it remains standard practice to promote streams externally on platforms like Discord, X, and YouTube just to gain visibility.
The Format Problem: Vertical vs. Horizontal
One of the biggest friction points is the feed’s vertical video format. Most Twitch content is still streamed in horizontal 16:9, so getting featured in the feed means editing or repackaging content into vertical clips. Twitch didn’t make that easy until it rolled out a vertical clip editor late last year, by then, creators and fans had already grown used to the old system.
Streamer Gappy pointed out the awkward user experience:
“For newer users, they already have TikTok/YT Shorts/IG Reels — so why would they ever want to watch poorly formatted vertical clips or boxed horizontal clips through Twitch when their current apps do it better?”
Twitch Knows It Needs to Improve
Minton admitted the horizontal vs. vertical issue is real.
“We recognize one of the biggest impediments to a really good feed experience is that most of our video is horizontal,” he said, adding that vertical live video is coming “probably in a couple months” to help bridge that gap.
It’s part of Twitch’s broader push to compete with rising streaming rivals like Kick and YouTube Live, both of which are increasingly pulling creators away from Twitch’s once-uncontested throne.
From TikTok to Twitch — But With Limits
Even when creators bring audiences from other platforms, growth can be slow. Dan “B-Sides Live” Baxter, a creator who recently moved much of his subscriber base from TikTok to Twitch, says he’s managed to retain his core fans, but that’s where the growth stops.
On TikTok: 80,000 monthly views and 50,000 followers
On Twitch: 251 followers
“The move was smooth, but building beyond that on Twitch? That’s the hard part,” Baxter explained.
Closing Thoughts
Twitch’s Discovery Feed was a necessary step in modernizing the platform, but a year in, many creators still feel like they’re fighting uphill. While Twitch says the numbers are promising, creators on the ground say the tools and outcomes still don’t match what’s offered by rivals like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
As Twitch works to implement vertical live video and improve its feed infrastructure, it has a chance to catch up. But for now, most streamers still rely on outside platforms to drive traffic, and that says a lot about where the real discovery is happening.
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