Twitchcon has come and gone, and 2017 is rolling out a slew of new updates to help content creators. One of the reasons this is so exciting is that usually services are aimed much more at the consumer side of things – better ways to advertise or ways for the consumer to browse more easily – but the bulk of these updates are designed to help content creators, and that is good news for everybody.

The Twitch store seems pretty simple on paper but very quickly becomes a great idea for streamers. Essentially, Twitch now has its own storefront linked to Amazon. That makes sense because Amazon is their parent company, but where the real magic happens is when you are watching a stream. If a streamer is playing a game, it is usually listed just below the video. Now, if users click that name, they will be redirected to the Amazon store where they can purchase that game. The best part of this is that the streamer makes 5% of those sales. It’s a small step, but it is a little extra help for the thousands of streamers looking to translate this into a real job.

The Twitch store also encourages developers to offer special emotes available if users purchase the game through Amazon. Purchases through the Twitch store will also unlock Loot Boxes – which users will either love or hate based on the current attitude towards them – that further enhances the experience.

Twitch is also unveiling a host of more advanced analytics tools as well as achievements for streamers. The analytics tools finally put Twitch in a place comparable to Youtube with measuring visitors, views, and community interaction. Likewise, the achievements are actually advice and guidance on how to become more successful in the guise of fun progress bars.

Many of the achievements are goals towards becoming affiliates or partners, and achievements like “Stream 5 days in a row at the same time” are obviously designed to reinforce structure and success within the community.

There are other fun things Twitch is unveiling too, like Raids. Raids are in essence the same as hosting a fellow streamer, but when you invite your community to a Raid, you physically transport them into the channel of another streamer and seemingly invade that space. While it is a nice way of trying to make networking and partnerships much easier, there could also be a negative side of it. Even the title – Raid – seems to encourage a sinister bent. We discussed the issue with developers at Twitchcon and they said their testing indicated that a very small minority would use it for this and that the features for banning users would be more than enough to stop attacks.

Streamers and viewers alike can expect the changes to roll out sometime within the next month or so.