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Twitch users may soon see some brand new features coming to the platform, with a rewind option arriving for a limited trial period. The streaming community can try out the new feature for about a month, as announced via the Twitch Support Twitter page on Thursday.
Twitch is arguably the largest streaming platform out there, and even with other sites like YouTube and Facebook Gaming gradually becoming more popular, it has still retained its impressive numbers. An estimated 26.5 million visitors came to Twitch daily in 2020, watching over 90 billion minutes per month on average.
But one feature does separate it from some other sites: a lack of a rewind button for livestreams. In cases where viewers tune out or step away for some time, they might not have the opportunity to watch those moments again, especially if the streamers don't end up putting the VODs up after the live. Even then, the audience may find that clips and VODs are not the easiest to use if they're searching for one particular moment.
Of course, no rewinds help make the Twitch experience unique and the livestreams even more enticing to tune in to—so that you don't miss a single thing. Still, a rewind button could end up being a good thing for Twitch.
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Rewinding pushes the stream back to two minutes ago. Users can then rewatch those moments at various playback speeds. Moreover, the current livestream will continue playing as a picture-in-picture while watching the older segments. This way, viewers can check what they missed while also keeping an eye on the live version, instead of always having to catch up and ending up watching on a delayed timeline.
In addition, disabling VODs will also remove the rewind option for the channel. This could be particularly useful for staving off privacy concerns, such as in-real-life streamers whose locations might be analyzed. To gauge how well the community responds to such a feature, Twitch will roll out the Rewind the Stream button for about a month to selected channels and users.
Besides the rewind button, users also get to test out two other features. The Remind Me button will send push notifications for upcoming scheduled streams, while the Watch Trailer button showcases streamers' channel trailers, if available.
“This experiment will inform future features only and the buttons will be removed once it’s complete,” Twitch Support said.
