Perhaps no facet of the internet has impacted the video game landscape quite like livestreaming, with the king of livestreaming being Twitch for the better part of the past decade. The platform has made household names out of personalities like Ninja and Pokimane and has even attracted the likes of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to stream on the site. A recent frequent occurrence on the site has been for creators to livestream themselves while sitting in a pool or hot tub in swimwear. This caused some friction between these creators and the site’s moderators, so now a new pool, hot tub, and beaches category has been added to address this.

Twitch recently released a new blog post on its website addressing the recent trend of hot tub livestreams. This trend became particularly noticed when popular streamer Amouranth, who repeatedly made use of hot tub streams whilst wearing swimwear, saw her monetization options removed from her channel. Supposedly, this was done by Twitch specifically due to complaints from advertisers, but this move singling out Amouranth was met with criticism by streamers and viewers alike. As such, Twitch has announced their new category that designates streams fitting these conditions. Twitch’s reasoning for the category is as follows:

“This is not intended to be our long-term solution to improve brand targeting capabilities and increase personalization in our recommendations. It does, however, solve a few issues for all audiences in the near term. Creators can continue to stream content that falls into this category as long as it doesn’t violate our guidelines. Viewers can better avoid recommendations for content that they don’t want to see, and those wishing to view this content will have an easier time finding it. And brands can either opt-in or -out of this category based on whether it aligns with their target audiences, like they can today with any other category. “

Twitch’s guidelines forbid nudity and sexually suggestive material, though, this recent blog post acknowledges what is deemed “sexually suggestive” comes down to the individual, the complexity of which makes it difficult to create definitive lines. Streamers like xQc have criticized hot tub streams, while popular users like Pokimane have embraced the swimming-style streams, albeit in a bit more comical sense. What Twitch does in the future regarding these types of streams is yet to be seen, but hopefully, this means game companies will consider the merits of waterproof controllers.

What do you guys think about this new pool, hot tub, and beaches category for Twitch? Let us know in the comments below! Be sure to stay tuned for the latest Twitch news, such as Metallica’s BlizzCon performance being censored to avoid a DMCA takedown by Twitch, here on Don’t Feed the Gamers! Follow us on Twitter to see our updates the minute they go live!