斗鱼 (DouYu)
Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.
Overview
斗鱼 (DouYu, literally "fighting fish") is a Chinese live streaming platform with an emphasis on games and esports. The company is listed on Nasdaq, which makes available something rare for a Chinese service — reported audience figures with a date and a definition.
The platform describes itself in the markup of its home page like this: "斗鱼 — see every kind of love. It provides video streaming and game tournament streaming services in high quality, quickly and smoothly… all of it on 斗鱼, the streaming platform for everyone". That is the platform's own claim, not an independent assessment.
The practically important difference from Western services is how the relationship with a streamer is arranged. Here it is not "a partner programme with thresholds" but a contract with a Chinese legal entity, identity verification against documents, exclusivity and a points-based penalty system. The right to earn is a separate permission that the platform can suspend. Below we set out how this works according to the platform's own documents.
Who's here
The audience is disclosed in quarterly reporting. In its report for the first quarter of 2026, published on 28 May 2026, the company reports: an average mobile monthly audience of 22.9 million; an average quarterly number of paying users in the streaming business of 2.3 million, with an average payment of 228 yuan per quarter. Revenue for the same quarter was 821.8 million yuan, of which 460.0 million came from streaming — 18.5% less year on year.
The direction of travel matters more than the numbers themselves. In the report for the fourth quarter of 2025, issued on 25 March 2026, the figures given are 27.6 million average mobile audience against 30.5 million in the third quarter of 2025; revenue for the whole of 2025 was 3,818.9 million yuan. Three reporting points in a row — 30.5 million, 27.6 million, 22.9 million — show a shrinking audience. The company attributes this to cost optimization.
Language and geography. The service is Chinese: the interface, the documents and support are in simplified Chinese; you can sign in through WeChat, QQ, Weibo and AcFun (the platform's rules page). The company publishes no country breakdown of its audience — the service is aimed at mainland China.
Getting started
Registering as a viewer is ordinary: the agreement says outright that you become a user by filling in the details on the registration page, reading and accepting the agreement and completing the whole procedure.
Broadcasting is another matter. There are two mandatory steps here, each with its own consequences.
Identity verification
The platform's privacy policy names this directly: when connecting a stream, when a viewer takes part in a joint broadcast and for other features requiring real-name verification, you must supply genuine details — your real name, your identity card or passport number and facial recognition data. You may refuse, but then the corresponding features are unavailable. The version of the document we opened was updated on 18 March 2026 and takes effect from 21 March 2026.
A separate category of data is collected when a contract with a streamer is concluded: personal details for signing, information about an emergency contact person and the bank details for receiving money.
The streamer contract
The streaming agreement is concluded not with "斗鱼" in general but with a specific legal entity — 武汉瓯越网视有限公司 (the text of the agreement). The key obligations come from the same source: use genuine personal details and do not register with false documents or someone else's; provide your own network and equipment and guarantee a clear picture and stable sound; follow the procedure for applying for a broadcast room and voluntarily pay the corresponding deposit.
Minors are forbidden to broadcast: the platform prohibits broadcasts by minors, and among the serious violations there is a separate item for "a broadcast by a minor".
What you can publish
The platform's formats are live broadcasts, video recordings and text-and-image posts; the content management rules cover all three (the content 规范). There is a community forum ("鱼吧"), joint broadcasts with viewers and group broadcasts.
The prohibitions are laid out in more detail than on most platforms in the registry. The streaming agreement lists in a single sequence: threats to state security, pornography, gambling, fraud, money laundering, false and unlawful information, defamation, unlawful threats and harassment, infringement of others' intellectual property, and also "a refund by the streamer", trading in the platform's virtual items and inducing people to make deals bypassing the platform.
The content rules add specifics on appearance and behaviour: clothing that suggests sexual associations, the use of firearms, knives and crossbows (replicas included) as props, activities with a high degree of danger, and content that harms the health and safety of the author themselves. A separate document governs group broadcasts — the "Standards for healthy and safe group broadcasting" of 31 December 2025, which among other things forbid filming in military zones, at petrol stations and fuel depots, in nature reserves, at religious and cultural heritage sites without permission, as well as blocking fire lanes and broadcasting at length in railway stations and airports.
Live comments ("弹幕") are governed by two separate documents. The older one, dated 6 January 2016, forbids advertising, political attacks, stirring up conflict and regional discrimination, malicious flooding with special characters, denigrating the platform and advertising competitors, impersonating a 斗鱼 employee, pornography and spreading false news. The later "Standards of comment etiquette" add a "discouraged" category: meaningless messages, personal data and vulgar language.
How to grow
The platform does not describe the ranking mechanics — there is no public explanation of the recommendations. What is described is the feedback loop: the rules say outright that as violations accumulate a restriction on recommendations is applied. That is, the platform confirms that a recommendation surface exists only through the possibility of dropping out of it.
The formalized incentive to grow is the «主播收入成长计划» programme (the "streamer income growth plan"). It works like this: a participant who reaches a threshold automatically receives the qualification for the corresponding tier when they open the event page, with no manual application; the tier is determined by aggregate streaming data over a recent period, is fixed for a month and is updated on the 1st of the following month. Then come the tasks: you have to stream in the specified sections and complete the tasks shown on the page; the lower the tier the easier the task, and the higher the tier the harder it is and the more generous the reward. The reward has to be claimed manually: no later than 24:00 on the seventh day of the following month, otherwise it is treated as unclaimed. The specific thresholds in hours and in gift amounts are not named in the announcement itself — they are shown to the participant on the event page.
The platform documents no built-in public channel analytics.
Path to monetization
A streamer's income is made up of viewers' virtual gifts. The internal paid currency is called 鱼翅 ("yuchi", "shark fin") — it is mentioned in the rules as something to be protected: among the serious violations are hacking accounts and spending someone else's 鱼翅.
The main thing to understand here: the platform's share of gifts is not stated publicly. The agreement speaks only about the mechanism: the streamer is entitled to have income calculated according to the platform's settlement rules (if such rules exist); the platform is entitled, in accordance with its policy or an agreement signed separately with you, to assess you and calculate your income; the data and the specific amounts are determined by the results of the platform's system calculation. There is no percentage, no exchange rate and no minimum withdrawal amount in the public documents.
What is recorded precisely is the conditions under which there will be no money.
The right to earn can be withdrawn. The rules on streamer violations introduce the concept of «直播营利权限» — permission to profit from streams. The sanctions include delaying its issue, restricting, suspending, delaying the restoration of, closing or terminating this permission, and freezing income. And then, directly: during a period when the permission has not been issued, is suspended or is closed, the streamer has no right to have new streaming income calculated; the platform is entitled not to calculate, to postpone, to freeze or to withhold the corresponding amounts.
Part of the income is treated as invalid. The agreement lists the cases: income from spending by users who lack legal capacity or have limited legal capacity; income obtained through unlawful acts or by breaking the platform's rules; amounts that judicial or administrative authorities require to be returned, transferred or frozen; income from top-ups made with unlawful proceeds, with fraudulent means or otherwise than through the methods specified by the platform; income from purchases lawfully cancelled by the user. If there are not enough funds on the account, the streamer is obliged to pay in the shortfall within three working days of being notified.
The payout procedure. For an individual, money is transferred to the personal bank account given in their dashboard, and the settlement data is available under "dashboard — streamer — income history", with the amounts shown net of tax. For a legal entity, it goes to the organization's account, but only if it supplies a special VAT invoice for an equal amount no later than 5 working days before the payment. A change of bank details takes effect from the settlement month following the platform's verification.
Tools and automation
The platform does have an open platform — open.douyu.com. The page returns only the heading «斗鱼开放平台»: the content is inserted by a script, and the documentation cannot be read without signing in.
Of its own branded tools, the platform names in the footer of its pages clients for PC, Mac and TV, an app and «直播伴侣», a companion program for broadcasting, as well as separate sites for procurement, marketing and advertising.
Limits and rules
- Exclusivity. Without the platform's written consent a streamer is forbidden to carry out any commentary-related activity on competing platforms — Huya, Douyin, Kuaishou, Zhanqi, Panda TV, Twitch and others are named explicitly. Separately, you must confirm that you are not bound by a current exclusive contract with another platform.
- The points system. A broadcast room has 12 points; at zero it is blocked permanently. A point is restored one at a time if, after remediation, the streamer broadcasts for three days in a row with no violations and no deductions and keeps the room's popularity stable.
- Five levels of penalty. 1 — a warning; 2 — a ban on posting; 3 — an account block from 1 to 30 days; 4 — from 30 to 360 days; 5 — an indefinite block with a refusal to provide services in future. A serious violation by a streamer can cost anything from a 7-day block on the room to an indefinite one.
- Virtual property during a block. While a block is in force, virtual gifts, items and services are unavailable; if their validity period expires during the block, they cannot be used after it is lifted, and the user can bring no claim against the platform.
- Remediation deadlines. The platform is entitled to demand corrections within three working days of receiving the notice, failing which it may restrict or close the room and reduce the payouts.
- Trade secrets. For disclosure the agreement provides for a penalty of 100,000 yuan, and the trade secret is defined to include the size of your remuneration and how it is calculated. This is precisely why the payout terms cannot be found in public access.
- Sanctions clause. The streamer confirms that they do not reside in and are not located in countries and regions under US sanctions — Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria are named explicitly — and are not on any sanctions lists.
- Rights to your material. The platform receives a free non-exclusive worldwide licence with the right to sublicense, the right to use your name and image in the platform's advertising, and the right to retransmit your broadcast to third-party platforms with no separate consent and no separate payment.
- There is no employment relationship. The agreement explicitly stipulates that the parties are not in an employment relationship and that the platform pays no social contributions.
Who it's for
It suits gaming and esports creators working for mainland China who are ready for the Chinese model of the relationship: a contract with a legal entity, identity verification against documents, a deposit, exclusivity. If that is your market, the platform remains a large one — 22.9 million monthly mobile audience and millions of paying viewers.
It does not suit foreign creators who run parallel channels: the exclusivity clause forbids broadcasting on competing platforms without written consent. It does not suit those who need predictable income: the platform's share is a trade secret by the wording of the agreement itself, and the right to earn can be suspended at the platform's discretion. It does not suit automation: the open platform cannot be read without signing in.
And separately: the audience has been shrinking for three quarters in a row — from 30.5 million to 22.9 million by the company's own reports. Building a long-term project on a platform with that trajectory is a deliberate risk.
Tools for this platform
The list is built from the tools' own facts: every line is a tool's statement that it supports the platform, with the source named. A tool missing from the list only means we have no such statement.
Other tasks:
Verified data
The checked data this deep dive rests on.
About the platform
the platform describes itself like this: «斗鱼 - 看见每种热爱 提供高清、快捷、流畅的视频直播和游戏赛事直播服务，包含英雄联盟lol直播、穿越火线cf直播、dota2直播、美女直播等各类热门游戏赛事直播和各种名家大神游戏直播，内容丰富，推送及时，带给你不一样的视听体验，一切尽在斗鱼 - 每个人的直播平台。»
Self-description: this is the platform's claim about itself, not an independent assessment
source, checked 2026-07-28
Languages
the interface language of the home page: zh-CN
The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang
source, checked 2026-07-28
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