Today, popular game streaming service Twitch announced a new upgrade to the service called "Host Mode," which allows channel owners to put others' content in place of their streams when they are not broadcasting -- keeping their page and its chat channel active off-hours.
Host mode will be available on the Twitch website as of tomorrow, but not on other platforms in the immediate future. To engage it, type "/host
" into chat ("/unhost" undoes it.)
Any viewers who are in your channel while you're playing a hosted stream will be attributed to that stream, and will be given the option to subscribe to it from your page. Your stream will not be listed in the active channel directory while it's playing a hosted stream, either. The original broadcaster will get the views, follows, and (if signed up for the program) ad impressions during Host Mode.
This seems to open up interesting cross-promotional possibilities: If you're done streaming development of your game, you could turn your channel over to other games' devs at off-hours. It also seems likely that popular streamers may open up opportunities to get your content into their channels.
