Twitch is a live video streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, and broadcasts esports competitions as well as musical and creative content, among other streams. It operates under Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com Inc.
Watching broadcasts and streams on Twitch is free and doesn’t necessarily require viewers to be logged in. However, having an account has a lot of benefits for the user such as the ability to subscribe to their favorite channels, interact with the streamer and other viewers through Twitch chat, and more.
Twitch is the largest streaming platform in the world and as of January of 2021, the platform gets 140 million visitors every month. Compared to the 55 million users in 2015, Twitch has experienced exponential growth in just a few years. Every month, 6.7 million streamers publish content to Twitch, and over 1 trillion minutes of video were watched on the platform in 2020 alone.
Gaming is Twitch’s biggest asset, and its roots run deep in the esports scene. Other genres of streaming may have started to become more popular, but video games still take up the majority of the published content. On average, there are at least 2 million people watching Twitch streams at any given point in time, and considering that Twitch is known for its esports streams, it is only natural for Tournament Organizers to utilize Twitch to broadcast and advertise tournaments.
In this article we will be exploring Twitch Chat Logs, and will be explaining why it’s important for Tournament Organizers, Content Creators, and others who use Twitch as a platform to check the chat logs, and how to properly navigate it and inform you of the various tools that will make your life easier in the long run.
How to Check Twitch Chat Logs
- Switch to Moderator View – As a tournament organizer, it is important to be in the Mod View of your broadcast. This view is a customizable channel mode that includes everything to moderate the broadcast on Twitch. It can be modified precisely to how you want the interface to look, so that you can easily moderate the chat while ensuring that the broadcast is going smoothly. To access Mod view, just click the sword icon at the bottom of the chat that you moderate for. Or you can go to https://www.twitch.tv/moderator to access the live channels that you moderator for. Moderator View allows you to access the full chat history of the broadcast as well as the chat history of every user.
- Use a Third Party Program – To be more efficient, a third party program will be the way to go in terms of general chat duties, such as a chat bot. Read up on our article on Nightbot, one of the most used software for Twitch chat regulation, which allows you to automate the live stream’s chat with moderation and several more features, allowing you to spend more time entertaining and connecting with the viewers. Third party programs are especially useful during the live broadcast when tournament organizers are busy dealing with the technical and logistical side of a tournament.
- Explore the User Search Command – Broadcasters and moderators are equipped with a set of commands and features that allows them to monitor and moderate the chat. These are simple commands in the chat that are simple but very helpful, no setting up required as these are basic functions that come with being a Twitch streamer. These commands range from blocking a particular user to restricting chat to all or some followers and a built-in anti-spam. There’s a long list of Twitch Chat commands that will be helpful for any streamer, and especially important to tournament organizers. See the long list of commands here.
- Review the VODS (Video on Demand) – Reviewing tournament VODs is a great way for the organizers to analyze certain things that did well during a tournament. Sometimes, teams that played in the competition will request for a copy of the VOD as well, so that they can review their gameplay to improve as a team. VODS are recorded copies of the broadcast along with the chat logs which is a great way to examine how the audience is reacting at a particular point in time during the livestream. Tournament Organizers that are Twitch Partners get to store the recordings in their account for 60 days until they get deleted. For basic and affiliate users, however, Twitch only stores recordings for 14 days.
As tournament organizers, there are a couple of reasons why you should check the chat logs, during and after the tournament. Managing the chat, Analyzing chat behaviour during the stream, among others. It is also the organizer’s responsibility to moderate the chat and filter what the audience reads in the chat.
While you want to let the viewers interact with each other with the least amount of intervention as possible, it is also important to make sure that the chat’s toxicity is kept to a minimum and inappropriate remarks are censored. We listed down basic reasons to look into the chat logs as tournament organizers.
Why Check Twitch Chat Logs
- To filter inappropriate messages – Inappropriate comments and messages are varied in nature. What some consider inappropriate can be normal for some, this is because of the linguistic differences in viewership, and it is the job of the moderators to make sure to detect which ones are inappropriate for the entire viewership. Tournament Organizers should always try to keep the chat clean and free of toxic behaviour and that consistently toxic users are punished with mutes or bans. A toxic chat creates a toxic community, and a toxic community will reflect poorly on the image of the tournament organizer. So always keep your chat moderated, with toxicity to a minimum.
- To collect viewership data – The Twitch chat log is a great tool for analyzing what kind of content the audience enjoys, by reading the comments and messages you get an idea what the audience liked and what they found boring. Viewership data is the general atmosphere of the chat during the livestream and collecting viewership data gives you an impression of the overall disposition of the chat and what the viewers are most reactive to. Tournament Organizers can use the data from the Twitch Chat Log to see when the chat was quiet and when it was most active during the broadcast and what caused it.
- To analyze audience feedback – Every Tournament Organizer should listen to their audience in order to improve future events. Feedback is a driver for growth, especially in esports. The industry is fairly new and there are no clear cut guidelines set in stone. The twitch chat logs is the raw voice of the community, it is literally what the audience is saying during the broadcast, it is the space wherein they react to the gameplay, wherein they communicate with each other. Imagine watching a basketball game, and you get to hear what the people in the bleachers are saying. It can be good or bad. Useful or useless. Professionals and trolls. All mixed in there together. Those chat logs are a cheat sheet. Listen to them, consider their suggestions, and accept their criticisms while understanding that you cannot please everyone. Not every comment will matter, and not criticism is to be taken seriously. Take everything with a grain of salt.
- To keep up with the trends – The gaming community constantly produces memes and inside jokes, and you have to be really active in the community to be completely up to date. Every gaming genre has its own memes and inside jokes, and Twitch Chat is the best place to learn the vernacular every time a new one pops up. Some memes or statements may not make sense by itself, but the beauty of Twitch Chat is that the broadcast IS the context. The exact moment during broadcast in which the message was typed in, IS the context. Understanding the audience greatly helps in connecting with them, so read those chat logs!
- To discover opportunities – Twitch chat can be VERY active especially with an active audience. There might be a chance that a potential collaborator left a message through the chat and is asking for a way to contact you. These are opportunities that any tournament organizer would not want to miss. Or there might be messages and feedback that were left unnoticed during your first scan of the chat that provides professional insight on how to improve the broadcast. Twitch Chat logs’ functions are built exactly for these opportunities. So always make sure to have a run down of the broadcast before the logs get deleted!
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