YouTube Gaming: Google launches live games video streaming site to rival Amazon's Twitch
Gameplay videos are among the most-watched on YouTube — and now Google has given them their own devoted service
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Your support makes all the difference.Google has launched YouTube Gaming, a new site devoted to live-streaming games.
The launch means that Google is taking on Twitch, the huge, Amazon-owned game streaming website. Google itself had tried buy Twitch — but lost out.
Now it has created its own site, available globally online and in apps for Android and iOS. It collects videos of games, over 25,000 of which are each given their own profiles, and allows people to set up livestreams while they play.
It is also integrated into YouTube, letting people convert their stream into a video on the site when it is finished, for instance.
Users can follow games, getting updates when popular videos are posted, and can receive notifications when channels go live.
Most of those features are already present on Twitch, the $1 billion site that has grown huge and fast by hosting such videos.
That site has already responded to YouTube’s launch, pointing out that the launch is recognition of the huge scale of the video streaming industry, which Twitch helped create.
“The opportunity in gaming video is enormous, and others have clearly taken notice,” Twitch’s SVP of marketing Matthew Dipetrio told Engadget. “We're proud of what we've accomplished in the last four years, but our eyes are on the future. We are focused on building upon the foundation we've laid with the Twitch community, and incorporating the next-generation features the community has asked for.
“We are dedicated to being the best social, global, multi-screen video platform for gamers, period."
The main YouTube site is already a huge destination for gamers, with videos made by them consistently among the site’s top videos and channels. The site has made stars of gamers like Felix Kjellberg, who posts as PewDiePie, and has made $7.3 million from letting people watching him play video games.
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