According to a report, streamers and creators will soon be able to raid and host other streams on YouTube.
Streamer news outlet Zach Bussey broke the news yesterday afternoon. According to Bussey, the feature will be called Cross-Channel Referrals and will be available to all eligible creators in the first week of May. Creators will have to have more than 1.000 subscribers to drive viewers to other posts. It's unclear exactly when the creators will have access to the referrals, but it will be later this week, according to Bussey's report.
The announcement comes after Bussey revealed earlier this year that YouTube is working on raid and host features similar to Twitch. While YouTube's Cross-Channel Redirects are similar to Twitch raids and hosts, YouTube creators will need to allow other channels to forward referrals to their own channels separately, i.e. for broadcasters to host or raid them from others. They will need to ask them to add it to their “live referral list”.
YouTube has painstakingly added many features that creators and viewers have requested over the past few years, including bonus subscriptions (equivalent to Twitch subscriptions) and additional creator tools. These new features have helped gain users from competing platforms like Twitch and Facebook Gaming. Major streamers like CouRage and Ludwig praised YouTube Gaming, explaining that they felt more comfortable and welcomed on the site than they did on Twitch.