Gab Hernandez 
After over three years of service, Twitch is discontinuing the Watch Party feature on Twitch, leaving streamers like Will Neff in an awkward position.
Streamers naturally gravitate towards “reaction” content. It’s easy to set up, requires no script or gaming skills, and can still excite the audience that hopes to see their reactions. Naturally, this react-style content lent itself well to riffing on movies, with internet creators adapting the popular riff track format of classic TV shows like Mystery Science Theatre 3000.
Twitch attempted to effectively build this concept into the platform with Watch Parties, which allowed streamers and viewers who had an active Amazon Prime subscription to watch movies and TV shows from the platform simultaneously. However, official support for Watch Parties has come to an end.
What happened to Twitch Watch Parties?
Twitch will discontinue the Watch Party feature for Twitch on April 2, 2024.
Twitch implemented the Watch Party feature in 2020 to encourage audiences to engage with the media their favorite Twitch streamers were watching in real-time and to give Twitch viewers even more incentive to subscribe to Amazon Prime. Much like Let’s Play content, these streams typically succeeded on the streamer’s charisma, as opposed to the movie or show itself.
Twitch exclusively locked Watch Parties to Prime Video subscribers, and all content using the feature must come from the Prime streaming service, which made it unappealing for most streamers besides Will Neff. The Watch Party feature was available on all platforms that can run Twitch. According to Twitch’s statement on the Watch Parties help page, it discontinued the feature due to a lack of use. Twitch states it would invest the resources used for Watch Parties on other features. Although not many creators used the feature, one popular OTK Network member will miss it dearly.
What will happen to Will Neff’s Movie Nights?
Will Neff will likely end Movie Nights with the end of Watch Parties, though he has not officially discussed the matter.
Will Neff took to social media to share his thoughts on the end of Watch Parties. The somber and final tone likely means Movie Nights will no longer continue. Although Neff never directly states the series has ended, the Watch Party feature was crucial to the ease of Movie Nights.
While Neff could continue Movie Nights and simply have a timer on-screen signifying the timestamp in an unseen window, it’s a downgrade from the experience most viewers had. The OTK social media team joked that Neff could simply watch fan-made parodies of iconic films on YouTube, such as Live Action Toy Story.
Whatever the future holds for Movie Nights, it holds a special place in the hearts of Neff’s fans.
