We decided to try tackling streaming because I felt that we could do a cooler platform than what was already out there: no latency and group streams. We wanted to create a platform where you didn't need to jump from one channel to another just to watch people all playing the same game together.
Sadly, it didn't catch on enough with creators or users. It has mostly stagnated in usage as a feature. We've had some really fun moments in firesides, like taking down bosses, or filling Halloween monsters up with candy, but all of that takes a ton of engineering effort.
I've spent over 1,000 hours of my own time working on building out the firesides platform, and the team's contribution goes beyond that.
The tough truth is that it's one of the most expensive features for us to continue running, and it makes no money. It's a drain on resources that we could put elsewhere. It also takes a ton of engineering effort to maintain and work on. Our team is pretty small, and it would require us to completely focus on firesides.
In the end, I'm making the extremely difficult decision to shut down streaming on Game Jolt for now. I have to make the cut if the feature isn't growing in usage, it doesn't make the platform any money, and it costs too much to keep the feature going. That's not to say that we'll never have streaming ever again, but for now I think our time and money is better spent elsewhere.
The final date for using firesides will be October 15th. On the 16th (at midnight pacific time), we'll turn it off.
It's been fun to hop into streams with everyone.
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