Twitch, the service popular for live gameplay streams, is reportedly planning to launch a slate of unscripted series that include dating and game shows—because we certainly have nowhere near enough half-baked reality TV being churned out already.
Citing an internal document it obtained, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Twitch plans to drop between $US50,000 ($78,160) and $US250,000 ($390,802) per week on “live and interactive” series. According to the outlet, the series would comprise four to 10 hours of content and would air two to three times per week. In addition to dating and game shows, other series could include sports, music, and talk shows.
Neither Twitch nor its parent company, Amazon, immediately returned a request for comment.
I’m not sure how a Dating for Gamers series would play out during a time when everyone is sheltering at home and social distancing—though, God help us if Twitch takes a Love Is Blind-adjacent route. But other unscripted series, like gaming or talk shows, actually makes quite a bit of sense right now. As Bloomberg notes, Twitch’s biggest streamers already film themselves from home. It’s not hard to see how these streamers could tap their audiences for more structured formats to explore topics they care about.
According to Bloomberg, Twitch is looking to develop series that appeal to audiences of between 18 and 24 who are interested in gaming as well as entertainment more broadly. Interactivity for these series is apparently integral to their production, with Bloomberg citing the company as telling potential partners it wants to “set a new bar for multiplayer entertainment.” Again, it’s not difficult to imagine interactivity steering live TV topics in much the same way as they already do during gaming livestreams.
An interactive dating series, however, does sound like exactly the kind of dystopian hell content that should never be made in the first place—which of course means it absolutely will be. Personally, I welcome whatever reality TV drivel Twitch dreams up to feed our insatiable appetite for content. Bring on the garbage.