YouTube’s Entry into Streaming

in eSports

In what is quickly becoming the plot of HBO’s Silicon Valley, YouTube announced on June 12th the launch ofitss new game streaming platform. With Twitch having its first major competitor, the Google backed YouTube Gaming is going to signify a major shift in the electronic entertainment industry. Judging just by the numbers from 2014, with 1 billion unique viewers and 6 billion hours being watched every month on Youtube compared to the 100 million viewers and 260 million hours that Twitch receives, this doesn’t even look like a competition. When Amazon purchased Twitch last year for $1 Billion it was a big indication of just how large the worldwide audience for this industry is. It brought eSports and the live streaming of video games to the business forefront, and the fact that Amazon beat Google in the winning bid was one of the most surprising parts about the deal.

Now, over half a year later Google shows that they did not take that loss lying down. YouTube gaming is looking to be nearly identical to Twitch for the viewers, and even easier for the streamers. With the ability to connect the more traditional YouTube account with the new YouTube Gaming account, streamers will find little reason to stay behind on Twitch. In the upcoming months we are excited to see how these two streaming platforms will try to keep their audience.