A livestream game is a game played through a live broadcast. Viewers steer it by typing commands or votes into the chat, through a Twitch extension, or by helping a streamer who plays on air. For brands, it turns people who would only watch a stream into people who take part, at a set time.
How it works
The format took off with Twitch Plays Pokémon, launched on 12 February 2014. A bot passed button commands from the Twitch chat to the game; a later "Democracy" mode tallied inputs over a window, usually 30 seconds, and played the winner. Guinness recognised 1,165,140 participants. By April 2015 Twitch was turning the idea into a product for advertisers, TechCrunch reported.
The viewer gets in one of three ways. The chat is the controller: you type a command or a number, and the most popular choice happens on screen. An extension adds an interactive page to the stream, as a panel under the video, an overlay on top of it or a component in part of the picture (Twitch Developers). Or a streamer plays the brand's game live and the chat helps solve it. In the brand streams below, rewards were emotes, a name in the credits or an exclusive excerpt.
Where brands use it
The library tags 23 games as Twitch and livestream work. Food and drink brands run the most, followed by entertainment and fashion and beauty, and most briefs aim at engagement or awareness. Old Spice came back to the format with Foam Zone in 2018, a football obstacle-course show on YouTube, Twitch and Facebook Live where chat votes decided eliminations and foam blasts. In the days before E3 2016, Doritos put a real claw machine on camera and let Twitch chat vote on every move for Mix Arcade. Two fast food brands handed the controller to streamers: Pizza Hut cast them as delivery drivers inside Warzone for The Pizza Hunt, and Burger King launched Mission: Whopper with Brazilian streamers attempting it live on Twitch.
When it fits
It fits a brief with a date: a launch, a beta opening, a premiere, an event people can be told to turn up for. The audience must already be on the platform. Old Spice went to Twitch because it is popular with young men, Marketing Dive noted; Audible went there for 16 to 24-year-olds that conventional advertising misses. Reach comes from streamers who bring their own viewers: Riot Games opened Escape to the Undercity to over 200 creators, who streamed it to a combined 5.2 million subscribers. Keep each vote open longer than the stream's delay: YouTube says most viewers of a low-latency stream see a delay under 10 seconds, and under five at ultra-low latency (YouTube Help).
When not to use it
Skip it when you need entries or data from each player. Twitch's extension rules bar using Bits to give viewers a sweepstakes or contest entry, ban advertising or sponsorship content in extensions, and allow product branding beyond naming the developer or its technology only when the extension is allowlisted to one broadcaster who owns the brand (Twitch Developers). Check the current rules with counsel before planning a prize (sweepstakes). For an always-on game, build a web game: none of the three examples below can be played today. In a crowd of thousands one vote rarely decides anything; give each viewer something of their own. If the live moment is on TV, a second-screen game fits better. Label paid streams: the FTC says to repeat a livestream disclosure periodically (FTC).
Examples from the library
Nature Adventure — Old Spice (2015)
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, PrettyBird, Fourclops, Twitch.tv · Platform: Old Spice's Twitch channel, a three-day live broadcast
For three days from 16 April 2015, the Old Spice channel on Twitch showed a live shoulder-cam feed of a man alone in the woods. Viewers typed what Nature Man should do next into the chat; when the crowd converged on an action, he did it, from facing a bear to courting a forest sprite, while a narrator kept up the brand's deadpan. Chatting earned exclusive Old Spice emotes. Wieden+Kennedy cited Twitch Plays Pokémon as its inspiration (Tubefilter).
Result: 2.65 million total views over the three days and an average of about 88,000 unique viewers per hour, AList reported. A sponsored Adweek feature put total views at 2.3 million, with more than 32,000 likes on the platform.
The Battle of Baron — Riot Games (2020)
Agency: BBH Singapore, Le Polish Bureau, UNIT9 · Platform: YouTube Live, one broadcast on 10 December 2020
To open the League of Legends: Wild Rift beta in several regions at once, Riot Games staged one boss fight on YouTube Live. Viewers typed 1 to 4 in the live chat to cast Smite and other abilities, or 5 to summon champions; the most-voted attack went through. If Baron fell, every open-beta player would get an emote and an icon, and the first 25,000 players to smite him were named Baron Slayers in the end credits (Riot Games).
Result: 50,070 players at the height of the livestream, 1.65 million live chat comments and over 450,000 views, and Wild Rift reached the top spot in app stores in multiple regions, according to UNIT9. It took Gold in the Games category of the 2021 Clio Entertainment awards (Clio Awards).
Truth HQ — Audible (2024)
Agency: UNIT9 · Platform: Twitch, a round-the-clock channel and three two-hour streams
On 17 April 2024 a Twitch channel called Truth HQ went live with no explanation: a round-the-clock propaganda feed for Ingsoc, the regime in Orwell's novel, generated by a custom AI. Three UK streamers then played a resistance cell. Their chats helped calibrate a device, slip past cameras and time moves through laser grids while the AI set traps. Winning stopped the feed and released a ten-minute excerpt of Audible's 1984 adaptation.
Result: Over 1 million unique viewers across six hours of content, a 400% uplift on Twitch's benchmark for sponsored livestreams; 34,000 chat messages, seven times the community engagement benchmark; 3.5 million minutes watched. 1984 topped Audible's global chart for April and became the UK's number one audiobook, according to The Drum Awards case study.
FAQ
What is a Twitch extension?
Twitch defines it as "a webpage that sits inside Twitch and communicates with Twitch to provide extra functionality" (Twitch Developers). It appears as a panel under the video, a transparent overlay on top of it, or a component in part of the screen that viewers can hide. The channel owner activates it and picks a slot. Extensions go through Twitch's review before release.
What is an interactive livestream?
A broadcast in which viewers change what happens instead of only commenting: polls, votes, questions, chat commands. On YouTube, the streamer can open a poll from the bottom of the live chat (YouTube Help). It becomes a livestream game when the interaction has a goal and an outcome: a boss to beat, a puzzle to crack, a reward to earn.
Is a livestream game the same as streaming a game?
No. Streaming a game means broadcasting yourself playing while viewers watch. In a livestream game the audience plays too, through the chat, votes or an extension. In Twitch Plays Pokémon every button press came from viewers. Brand formats often mix the two: a streamer at the controls, the chat deciding what to try.