Will our upcoming Twitch bot be a success?
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303
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resolved Jan 30
Resolved
NO

We are currently in the process of creating an integration for Twitch!
I am a partnered Twitch streamer and use to stream full time for a living before joining Manifold. So this project is something I am very excited about - although am aware at how hard it can be to get streamers to try new products/extensions.

Aim

To make a product that is significantly better than Twitch's built in betting system. Both in how powerful it is, but also how easy and fun it is to use for streamers/mods who have to set it up and for viewers who are betting. In ordered to be useful to a Twitch community, we will have to make sure it can all be done from Twitch (and OBS for the streamer) without having to visit Manifold other than the initial signup and linking of accounts. Hopefully people will then join our site and use it for other interests, but that would be an added bonus.

Twitch Chat Bot

The bot looks through chat and makes bets on users behalf based on simple commands they type.
It can also be used to let users know their balance, if they won/lost bets, and can be potentially used by mods to help the streamer resolve questions without having to go onto Manifold.

Browser Source (on screen feed of Market)

The onscreen element will allow users to follow the action. It should show live updates of bets being made by which users and reflect the probability changing throughout the game/event users are betting on.

OBS custom dock

(btw this is taken from a video and is not me haha)
Streamer's already have infinite tabs and things they have to manage. For them to want to use Manifold they need a super convenient way to choose markets to feature. Having a custom dock in OBS makes this super easy, and will also allow members of chat to create markets and add them to the group which they can choose from or make one themself!

Summary

Overall, this is only a brief explanation of how it would work, but hopefully gives some insight that will help you make your predictions! I'm also writing a proposal doc on the follow up work I intend to do that I'll link here: (some examples for now: partner with tournaments and have them use this, sponsor streamers, use it on my own stream, create challenges that cause streamer communities/individuals to compete against each other to see collectively who can make more Mana).

Resolution Criteria

All of the following have to be met within three months of the bot launch date (official launch is with the SBB tournament on the 29th of OCT. This puts the resolution date at 29th of Jan 2023) for it to be YES. I will try to avoid partial resolutions.

  1. 500+ people link a Manifold to a Twitch account

  2. Ten streamers who were not paid/endorsed by Manifold use it regularly

  3. At least 20% of streamers who are paid to use it continue to do so after their paid contract expires.

There are a few additional exceptional cases that would make me resolve as YES even if not all of the above are met. Examples would include:

  • Large viral event (huge streamer uses it, A-tier article written about it, approached by large tournament organiser for a future partnership)

  • Resolution criteria barely missed, but majority of users become very active on Manifold itself in addition to Twitch.

  • The tool is just insanely good at decreasing the average user acquisition cost of sponsorships even if it is simply a marketing tool and doesn't gain additional traction beyond that.

    Close date updated to 2023-01-29 11:59 pm

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predicted YES

A couple of streamers have started using it, but the marketing side of things was much harder than I originally anticipated. Still has potential but didn't meet the requirements in time.

predicted NO

@DavidChee One month after the tournament, could you share some information on the progress for this? Ie, number of linked accounts, number of streamers you're aware of using the bot, etc.

I'm also curious if you intend to include Destiny in the "large viral event" category even if they don't use the bot.

predicted NO

After seeing Destiny's fans use this I am more optimistic, because I think that "you can use it when no Twitch stream is going on" can be something which a streamer community really likes about Manifold, and then it will make them want to participate in the same markets and using the same account when using Twitch. I didn't think of that before when we were building it

predicted NO

@mqp (use this == use Manifold)

predicted NO

@SirSalty What's the "bot launch date" for the purposes of this market, and will you be extending the resolution date to three months from then? I know the announcement post in the discord about the bot being "live and functioning" was on 9/19, but that pushes the end date to December.

predicted YES

@wasabipesto It's still buggy and not super great to use right now so I havent actually been using it/encouraging people to do so.

The official launch date is going to be on the 29th of OCT with the SBB tournament so it will 3 months from then (will update the description thanks for the reminder).

bought Ṁ250 of NO

Still betting this down a bit even though the technical work is basically done and therefore derisked.

predicted YES

Update: Took longer than expected but it should be ready for streamers to use within the next few days!
Will update more soon.

predicted NO

I've built a Guesstimate here: https://www.getguesstimate.com/models/21104

predicted YES

@wasabipesto oo very cool I've never seen this before. Can u explain briefly how it works? Did u manually enter all the numbers and create the distribution by hand? Was it just based off of your own intuition or something else?

predicted NO

@DavidChee For each variable you give it a range ("500 to 5000") and a distribution (uniform, normal, lognormal, etc) and it automatically generates a bunch of samples that match those criteria. Then you can create functions that work off those variables and it runs a "simulation" for each sample of each variable to show the distribution of possible final outcomes. I think it's a helpful tool when dealing with very large or very small numbers that are hard to intuit, instead you can give it ranges and combine those ranges in ways that make sense. (And it'd be super cool if Manifold had a way to embed them natively!)

bought Ṁ20 of YES
Investing a 20 on this idea so I can keep track. I would be interested in this extension as I would like to create bets on some of my possible future streams.
predicted YES
@littlebubulle I'll reply to this when it is live! If you do end up using it let me know ur stream ^^
Very cool, and I especially like the attention to detail in the resolution criteria!
Northernlion might be out of your price range, but he regularly uses Twitch's betting system for Super Auto Pets for number of wins in a run. It's 0-10, but as you know you can only bet on a single option, so no hedging. I don't know if it annoys other people but it bugs me, a MM extension would be an improvement in that regard. Also sounds like it would have the side benefit of potentially being visible in recordings for YouTube. Maybe you should sell M$ for bits.
predicted YES
@horse oh Nothernlion is a cool dude, never really interacted with him too much myself though. But definitely would consider sponsoring him to use it haha. Yeah selling Mana for bits is something I'd really like to do. Not sure exactly how legal/difficult it would be to set up. With regards to chatters being too spammy. Even though we would allow the chat bot to look for !create market commands from the streamer and mods in chat, we wont allow it for regular viewers. I think if they want to come on to manifold on a 2nd tab and add markets u wont get too much spam. And the bigger streamers can just make it a closed group and not let viewers join. Hopefully in the future though groups will have more structured hierarchy systems.
I don't know if "chatters can create markets and add them to the streamers group" is a good model, chatters are known for being spammy. I feel like some permission or moderation tools would have to be available for the streamer/group owner for that in particular to be a useful feature.
bought Ṁ400 of NO
I think even one of those criteria would be a stretch... I might put the probability lower, except that "huge streamer uses it" seems to me to be high variance. I can imagine a case where a big streamer tries it out once even if in general it doesn't seem to be succeeding, especially since I assume David has a lot of high profile streamer connections.
bought Ṁ200 of NO
Great market and writeup! Good luck, and sorry for the skepticism.
bought Ṁ50 of YES
@JamesGrugett that's weird. I'm trying to press what intuitively looks like a down vote button but nothing happens... is that a bug?
predicted NO
@DavidChee 🤣