YouTube launches YouTube Gaming to take on Amazon’s Twitch
Moving into the gaming arena, Google has launched a new app and website called YouTube Gaming. This move into gaming comes in after the company was outbid by Amazon to buy online videogame broadcaster Twitch last year.
YouTube Gaming will keep users connected to ‘the games, players, and culture that matter to you, with videos, live streams, and the biggest community of gamers on the web—all in one place’.
The company says in an official blog, “YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From “Asteroids” to “Zelda,” more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You’ll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators.”
The service will be available this summer, starting in the US and UK. Alan Joyce, Product Manager at YouTube said, “Keeping up with these games and channels is now super easy, too. Add a game to your collection for quick access whenever you want to check up on the latest videos. Subscribe to a channel, and you’ll get a notification as soon as they start a live stream. Uncover new favorites with recommendations based on the games and channels you love. And when you want something specific, you can search with confidence, knowing that typing ‘call’ will show you ‘Call of Duty’ and not ‘Call Me Maybe’.”
Mr Joyce added, “Live streams bring the gaming community closer together, so we’ve put them front-and-center on the YouTube Gaming homepage. And in the coming weeks, we’ll launch an improved live experience that makes it simpler to broadcast your gameplay to YouTube. On top of existing features like high frame rate streaming at 60fps, DVR, and automatically converting your stream into a YouTube video, we’re redesigning our system so that you no longer need to schedule a live event ahead of time. We’re also creating single link you can share for all your streams.”
