The 2013 Blizzard Stream Awards will recognize Twitch streamers in 14 different categories for the best Blizzard content in 2013.
Twitch had a great year in 2013, with millions of minutes of gameplay streamed by PlayStation 4 owners and games like Minecraft adding built-in streaming. Before the Hearthstone open beta began, Twitch was the best place to get a fix of the upcoming collectible card game from Blizzard. Now, Blizzard has teamed up with Twitch to recognize streamers who have streamed content from Blizzard games. The 2013 Blizzard Stream Awards will distribute a prize pool of $45,000 to 14 award winners. The 14 award categories are split evenly between data-driven categories and qualitative categories, voted on by the community. The award nominees will be announced on the Blizzard and Twitch community sites today, January 30. Community voting will begin February 5, and award winners will be announced on February 7.
To be eligible for the awards, you must have streamed content from one of four Blizzard games (Diablo III, Hearthstone, StarCraft II, and World of Warcraft) between January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013. You must also be a Twitch partner streamer, which is a revenue sharing partner program available to Twitch streamers who broadcast regularly, have over 500 average viewers, and apply for the program.
The seven data driven award categories have not been announced, but will be based on quantitative metrics like total numbers of hours streamed in 2013. The seven community voted award categories are:
- Favorite New Streamer of 2013
- Best Community Channel of 2013
- Most Educational Stream
- Favorite StarCraft II Stream
- Favorite Diablo III Stream
- Favorite Hearthstone Stream
- Favorite WoW Stream
After voting has closed on these categories, Blizzard and Twitch will announce the winners and runner-ups for all 14 awards.
This isn’t the first thing Blizzard has done to recognize Twitch streamers who play Blizzard games. The Hearthstone invitational tournament at BlizzCon 2013 brought eight players who regularly streamed the game together to compete for the title of “Grandmaster of the Hearth”. The $45,000 prize pool takes the 2013 Blizzard Stream Awards up a notch. Personally, I think it’s a pretty great way to thank the Twitch community.
Source: Blizzard
Published: Jan 31, 2014 12:10 am