Twitch had decided to introduce Guest Star, a new feature that will tie into existing software like Twitch Studio and OBS, that means that creators can pull guests into their livestreams, talk show style.
Voice or video chat
Creators that want to pull in guests to their stream can either invite them directly, or turn on a mode that will allow join requests, sort of like raising your hand in a zoom call. Guests that the streamer want on will get a little pop-up notification that they’ll be able to click on to go live on the stream. Guest Star will support video chats, but it’ll also allow creators to host voice only streams, as well as having a setting that can be toggled that will enforce audio input only for guests, even if the streamer wants to livestream video themselves.
Given the potential levels of troll-ability this has, Guest Star has some fairly hefty safety tools inbuilt to make the experience as smooth as possible. While Guest Star is designed to feature followers and subscribers, not JUST other creators, the host and mods have total control over the guests. That includes who’s able to join a stream, if they can use their camera or just their mic, if they can share their screen, as well as the volume of their mic. Guests that unfortunately break TOS, or the streamers specific rules can easily, quickly be kicked from the call at any time.
When deciding who to invite onto stream through Guest Star, creators and mods can see who in the channel is a possible ban evader, a known harasser or an otherwise suspicious user that might be inclined toward bad behaviour. Back in November, Twitch rolled out a new safety feature for automatically detecting and flagging suspicious users and that technology is now woven into the new streaming format.
Behind the scenes of the Guest Star tool, mods and creators can see a complete view of user behaviour right from the invite window, including how long a user has been a follower and past messages they’ve shared in chat.
Creators working with a larger team of moderators can designate which mods have the power to manage Guest Star and push guests live.