Google’s $1.65 Billion for Video Game Community/Live Stream Platform

 

 

Google Buying Twitch

Google is more than likely going to pay 1.65 billion dollars in cash to own a growing competitor to YouTube. Twitch is ultimately the YouTube for gamers -more the communal gathering of social harmony populated with amateurs, expert tournaments, eSports, a variety of loyal fanatics of video games from all eras who tend to log extended  hours watching, playing, sharing and communicating.

Twitch provides a video game platform and community for gamers to watch professional live games or broadcast their own and potentially earn some cash from the advertisements from their game streams. Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony`s PS4 system allow for easy live broadcasting onto Twitch and soon this may be available for mobile games.

 

Pinball Wizards Of the Modern Age

Amateur competitions were always part of video game culture but often failed. A good reason for this was that watching another person play a video game is really boring and seemingly pointless while not that many people would find this interesting and worthy of their time. As the internet grew in size and popularity, so did variety, culture, people, near limitless choices and this excess availability created a sort of matching fanfare for near everything. Now, professionals and amateurs are the attraction to a loyal following of fans on Twitch, who will gladly watch game competitions and thus subject themselves to entailment of being a trove grouping to marketers who can bank on a lucrative niche. Enter Google.

 

YouTube and Twitch

YouTube already contains plenty of users who upload, for example, video game walkthroughs on how to achieve or excel by watching and following their every step of the way with pointers, tips and advice. Twitch has the live streaming aspect which makes video gaming a more exciting spectator sport. There seems to be a reluctance for Twitch users that Google may appropriate Twitch in the same way as for YouTube, for example, requiring a Google account and Google’s notorious staunch approach to copyright enforcement.

 

Twitch has built a tight community that may not be pleased if Google changes anything on the popular video game sharing platform. The platform tends to be more of what can be called the “Long Curve” audience. While a popular channel can attract tens of thousands of viewers to a live broadcast, many of the smaller channels, more than a million of which are also broadcasters, can attract smaller audiences. Since launching in June 2011, Twitch has grown exponentially with more than 45 million visitors a month. A nice gathering of users who on average, spend 106 minutes a day on the site.  The fast growing company has been providing live streaming of the big seven video game tournaments.

 

Video Game Cultural Community

Monetization for Twitch is attained mainly from targeted video ads for certain games and channels. Paid subscriptions to channels remove advertisements of which 300,000 of viewers are paid subscribers of at least one channel.

Twitch is a potential for interactive game streaming, allowing viewers of a stream to have a certain control of the game they are watching on the basis of the commentary they add. The overall social aspect and communal growth and behavior is a very important aspect as to why Google has their eyes locked on Twitch. Twitch’s community may be a reluctant audience if Google changes any of the elements of user experience, which is geared more to a cultural phenomenon rather than a mere video sharing platform. Integrating Google+ into the mix may actually be detrimental or any of the Google ways of running things since Twitch was a way for gamers to find their own unique video game platform and now YouTube integration may burst that bubble.