Winks Notice!
To encourage the spending of Winks we are going to be implementing a limit after the subathon (that will begin December 28th 2025 at twitch.tv/blindwave) on the maximum number of Winks a user can horde. We will be capping the maximum number of Winks a user can have at one time to 3,000. This cap will apply retroactively, so if your current Winks total greater than 3,000 they will be reduced to 3,000.
So spend those winks before they’re gone… maybe on the new card set that is launching during the subathon!
If you need a refresher on how to earn Winks and what to spend them on, click here.
If a cap is put that is fine. But retroactively removing the Winks people already earned over weeks or months would be wrong.
The solution should be that you cant earn more because the system changed not losing what you earned under the previous one..
How do i even use these things? I don’t spend them because I have no idea how to. I looked at the linked page and honestly still don’t understand. I’m already a paying member, so it’s not like unlocking stuff has value to me.
How will that affect the levels? And why is it such a bad thing if people are keeping their winks? Does it make a difference if they spend it 3k at a time, or like 13k? There’s only specific things you can do with them, and it doesn’t matter how many winks you collected, you can still do the same things. Also, why delete the winks people already have? Is it not possible for people with more than 3k to stop earning winks until they spend them?
How will that effect leveling up? And if it won’t, maybe there should be some way to know how many winks one need to level up. If using winks has no effect on level up, people might lose track of how many winks they need to level up.
It makes sense from a business point of view. If people hoard their winks and something comes on the channel they would be willing to spend money on, they wont need to since they have the winks for it.
However taking away people’s current winks is not a good solution.
Simply add the limit of 3k and anyone currently above 3k cannot earn more. That in itself will incentivize them to spend the winks eventually so they can start earning more. No need to remove anyones winks. People will be incentivized to spend them and get below 3k to start earning more, but they will have the flexibility to choose their own time frame.
Wild how hoarding Winks is seen as bad. Just make a max cap every month or something if you really don’t want people to have a lot but I don’t even see the problem with people hoarding it
Someone mentioned something similar and I think its probably the best middle ground. If you really want to “encourage” spending winks through this method. Instead of deleting/wiping thousands of points people have earned away, why not just stop earning?
If they are above 3000, they can no longer earn more points. This is effectively the cap you want but doesn’t remove the points that people have earned. It also prevents people from going over it once they drop below 3000.
Yeah, that feels like a better idea instead of limiting/ just out right deleting it. This feels like the type of thing a live game service would do because they “think” it would have X effect, instead it does the opposite.
Also how does this encourage spending Winks? If I wasn’t going to spend my Winks before this, how is this going to make me spend mines even more? I still wouldn’t be interested in spending it. I’m not particular interested in Winks/Spending it. That’s why I don’t bother with it. While some others find the Wink notification extremely annoying, and don’t want to deal with it.
Can you give us a way to disable the pop up notification for the winks?
I’m weighing in a little late, but this doesn’t seem right. I understand implementing a max cap on winks, but its not fair to retroactively reduce everyone’s total who is already above that cap. People may have been saving them for a reason and to take that away leaves a sour taste. Not to be a downer, I love all you guys but sometimes things don’t feel right.
Well on my way to spending 30,000 winks. Half way there, guess I’ll just keep tabs on a piece of paper around how much I’m earning and hope it matches with getting to the next level. In another 2 years or so. Then the next important level 6 for another recommendation spot will only take maybe 6 years to get a million winks I guess. So looking forward to the next 8 or so years of collecting and spending winks as quickly as I earn them, since “hording” them somehow is bad? For some reason
Huh? So guess that my fault for saving up winks for specific times to use
I’m fine with it personally. I have absolutely no use for Winks. They are just a number at the top of my screen that I ignore. I just, for the first time, boosted my recommendations the other day, just for the hell of it. When I log in, if it wasn’t for the daily popup asking me to acknowledge my daily log-in reward of Winks, I wouldn’t even remember they were a thing. I’m not into the card thing, so I think for me, whether the cap is 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000, it makes no difference.
As a side note, could we please have an option to hide the daily log-in reward pop-up? I disabled Winks notifications a while back, which stopped showing the achievements and whatnot, but the daily log-in still pops up every day which I was hoping would also be hidden. It feels bothersome to have to click out of a pop-up every day when visiting the site.
I don’t think people are hoarding winks on purpose. There just isn’t enough to use winks on. It was a great idea when it started. It just needs to evolve. Maybe winks could get their fan question answered, during mailbag time or live podcast. Maybe winks could be used to enter contests for merch. There are many ways to interact with fans using winks. Blind Wave is one of the largest reaction channels, but you don’t interact with fans as much as other reactors, even with the chat during live videos and podcasts, or here in the replies. Winks gives us something to do, but we are still separated. Also, I think having more wink benefits and showing the result of those benefits on the YouTube side would entice more people to subscribe here. I could be wrong, as I don’t know how many paid members you have here compared to free YouTube subscribers, and we don’t see how many people have voted for polls and what is winning in the poll. These are just my thoughts. I could be way off. Thanks for reading!
i have no idea how to use winks
You are not alone brother. Not only are the wink notifications crazy annoying, I honestly have no idea what to do with these 7000+ winks I have. Is it possible to just give them away to one of you lot?
This reads as a very underhanded attempt to coerce people into panic-spending Winks on things that don’t interest them.
As someone who intends to spend every Wink they earn, I now feel less incentivized to spend (or earn) any more. If I’m about to lose Winks I’ve earned already, why should I?
Please reverse this unreasonably prohibitive decision.
Unsure how this encourages spending? If someone is subscribed to beyond and is paying you money, they have basically no use for winks. Recommendations have 0 indication on when/if they matter so no point in boosting and the cards are in theory a fun gimmick but when the options are permanently unlocking a full length reaction vs some virtual cards, I think most people will obviously pick the one that has actual monetary value.
I am someone who spends my winks occasionally but that is only because I have started to cancel my sub when I don’t think it is worth it. These feels like a unnecessary punishment for people who actively engage/support you?
Also springing this up out of nowhere and saying that it’ll happen in the next couple days feels odd. Most people won’t even see this post/be aware of the changes by the time it happens.
when winks first started i was hoping to use them in polls but now use them for recommendations and will lose 2450 winks
What??? What happened to the polls where we could use Winks to vote? The trading cards are cool, but they are not something I’m personally interested in collecting as is. As ZeroRanger mentioned, if there was some purpose beyond just “having them”? If it was something physical, maybe, but digital artifacts just don’t do it for me.
And as ZeroRanger also mentioned, since we never really know when a poll might go up (I’m a long-time Beyond member but you guys watch a lot of stuff I’m just not into), it’s hard to know when to boost a particular show or movie. I also ask, respectfully, that you reconsider this decision.
I interact with the website a lot more frequently (everyday) because I’m collecting Winks. If there is a max I can collect there’s no reason for me to visit as often. You guys are my favorite reactors. That’s why I’m an annual Beyond member even though you watch less and less of the stuff I like, and when you do pick something I’m interested in (like The Pitt), we don’t get a reaction from the majority of the core of Blind Wave. Sigh. I’m rambling now. Sorry. I’m just disappointed and frustrated about this decision. I hope you’ll change your minds because this seems punitive and the opposite of fun.
Agreed 100%. This is super dumb. Please Blind Wave see this!
Thanks for the in depth and useful feedback. I’m considering alternative solutions. If I do still choose to remove Winks, I will make another post with the date I plan to do so.
Rick, thanks for at least considering other options. I appreciate all your hard work on the site.
I second this sentiment.
This is super frustrating to see and feels a little bit like a kick in the face as someone who has indeed been hording so many winks for the freedom and flexibility of using them when I want. I have 32,000… and so all of that is going to be lost out of the blue? I already have all the cards and a new set if I’m interested (which I’m not really feeling right now), I’d probably still have plenty after that.
It’s such a massive waste with so LITTLE TIME and WARNING to actually spend them on… what exactly? I can boost only 3 of my recommendations and only do it once which is 1500. So that’s all useless. Maybe I can unlock videos but at the same time I had been SAVING UP so I could be more selective about what I wanted to unlock WHENEVER instead of rushing to do a whole bunch right now that I’m not sure i’m even going to check out which in of itself would be even MORE of a WASTE.
Considering the TIME it took to EARN these Winks, I feel like that should be considered in the grace period. Like give people a year, not a week of subathon to spend these winks until all that progress is gone. Since this is really making me regret even caring about logging in to get these winks in the first place! Not to mention when you FIRST ANNOUNCED this as you link in said winks page… What happened to this?
“You can also spend Winks to vote in future special polls where whichever option has the most Winks wins. These are not replacing Beyond polls to replace shows or movies. We have some fun ideas for some Wink polls, but let us know if you have any ideas!”
I don’t know if this is for patreon/Beyond members but from my perspective, THIS NEVER HAPPENED! This was another reason for me to want to save winks! I was looking forward to this but now it means nothing. Which is extremely frustrating and disappointing. Perhaps I’m being melodramatic but I genuinely feel lied to about this and that’s kinda depressing.
I’m upset and I think that’s fairly valid. Ideally I’d prefer you don’t do this at all, or raise the cap to maybe 10k OR at the VERY LEAST… EXTEND THE DEADLINE for the amount of time it takes to earn 32,000 winks! Or at least a year!
Also… If you want to encourage the spending of winks, then I would change the values of them because that is why I have not spent them previously because they are not efficient when you do the maths. For instance… if I boost a recommendation… that BOOST can be MEANINGLESS depending on the timing. Because I don’t know when polls are happening or when their being put together to know if my boosting will mean anything at not. Whilst 1 month of it being boosted is NICE… I do think it should be longer (2 or 3 months) to ensure that it means something for whenever the next POLL is… OR AT LEAST SOME KIND OF NOTIFICATION should be given to accounts of a relevant show that is on your recommendation. Like is it a animated, anime or live-action poll being put together? People should be told this information otherwise it’s a complete WASTE of SPENDING WINKS. Or at the very least, make the boosting cheaper like 250!
The spending for unlocking videos price is more or less okay I think… I’d prefer cheaper since I do think that will incentive people to spend them more.
When it comes to spending on the card sets? I just see it as ‘might as well’ but It would be nice if the cards somehow meant something or allowed you to unlock additional stuff. Maybe some of that can involve the Blind Wave convention or special events and whatnot or unlocking some obscure niche random bonus content. Like maybe reacting to a random video. Or maybe spare cards can be exchanged for winks? But at less value? Which would technically be 33 Winks. Maybe make 30 or 25 for the wink bank or whatever. So that people aren’t just sitting on the same card if they have too many and can actually do something with it beyond just trading. Or maybe actually turn the cards into some sort of card game that you can actually play like a snap sort of thing, or whichever card has the highest value or something wins.
Also very random recommendation… on recommendations. It might be nice if you can see people’s recommendations, might be a fun way to spark conversations/messages between folks! And people should have the option of opting out of that as well!
Overall, I’m super disappointed in this and I’m not sure I’ll be invested in winks in the future because of this change and I hope it changes back or differently.
EDIT: Had to reformat this so it’s not a wall of text… not sure if it works and if not then bleh. I tried.
Thanks for the in depth and useful feedback. I’m considering alternative solutions. If I do still choose to remove Winks, I will make another post with the date I plan to do so.
Thank you for being open to reconsideration! Sorry if I might have been a touch emotional/ranty and I hope the subathon can still be fun for you!
Also I agree with Chris that it would be nice if we could see our total-total of winks because the number seems a bit funky sometimes. And I believe there were other ways planned to get winks? Also I feel like the daily wink login should be altered slightly so it’s 10/day, so 2 days is 20, 3 is 30, etc. And maybe an occasional bonus for every 10 days or month. And the yearly bonus/achievement should give a lot more winks!
I would highly HIGHLY suggest against removing winks from people that actually put in effort to raise them, visiting the website and all that daily to get that. You would not be helping anything but hurting instead. If you want to incentives people to spend winks instead of hording them, think of more things people can spend winks on.
For example you could make an extra incentive for your most hardcore fans than are already on beyond or the highest tier. For a hefty wink price you can unlock certain Friday movies a week early. I’m sure there would have been a lot of people willing to spend their winks to see that one a bit early. And this would be a thing you can only do if you are on Beyond, for example.
Play to your strengths, don’t upset your most hardcore fans that are spending money monthly and are also here daily, find ways to get them to spend the winks instead of punishing them for no reason.
Love, Ebo.
Agree with all your points and wanna add, I’m still not convinced if I start spending I’ll ever get the next level since I have no way of knowing how many winks I’ll have overall level wise, vs what I have to spend on things. And not convinced it works as advertised that spending them doesn’t affect leveling. Hell getting to 100,000 is already difficult for a level that doesn’t even get us an extra recommendation spot. What’s level 6? 1 million. The levels seem to be one more and more impossible to reach and now we won’t even know where we are in winks and hope eventually we level up