Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#141

Post by robryan » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 4:10 AM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #63

duaneb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think content owners would see this as IP theft rather than free advertising? Are people watching play throughs rather than playing it themselves?

It heavily depends on the game. There are lots of single-player games where the story is much better than the actual game mechanics. Or where watching somebody figure out all the puzzles is more fun than doing it yourself. Here, streamers and let's-players likely cause a decrease in game sales. In simulation and competitive games on the other hand streamers should usually cause more sales then they prevent. As one le…

Even if publishers decided to take a hard line on this I don't think it is too big a deal for Twitch. The majority of their viewership is in esports events and the games that are played as esports.

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#142

Post by paavokoya » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 4:13 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #137

dexwiz wrote: post #2

Amazon bought two things with Twitch: 1) A social community 2) a monetization model. The video service itself is secondary. The past several years has shown the social communities grow organically. But its hard to make users adopt one. If you build it, they probably won't come. It's easier for a big company to buy one up than start one from scratch. (Think Instagram versus Google Plus). Second, Twitch is one of the f…

If this thesis holds true: > The past several years has shown the social > communities grow organically. But its hard to > make users adopt one. If you build it, they probably > won't come. It's easier for a big company to buy one > up than start one from scratch. (Think Instagram > versus Google Plus). Then the best use of someone's time might be to start as many social networks as possible on the possibility that o…

Reminds me of irl communities where artists and entrepreneurs start local, homegrown businesses (think portland hipster) and then giant corps come in, tear down the old housing, throw up 5-story Ikea condos on every block (along with the white-bread cafes and clog shops) and ride the "trendy neighborhood" wave for a decade or two until the money leaves for another cool neighborhood

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#143

Post by forrestthewoods » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 4:15 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #137

dexwiz wrote: post #2

Amazon bought two things with Twitch: 1) A social community 2) a monetization model. The video service itself is secondary. The past several years has shown the social communities grow organically. But its hard to make users adopt one. If you build it, they probably won't come. It's easier for a big company to buy one up than start one from scratch. (Think Instagram versus Google Plus). Second, Twitch is one of the f…

If this thesis holds true: > The past several years has shown the social > communities grow organically. But its hard to > make users adopt one. If you build it, they probably > won't come. It's easier for a big company to buy one > up than start one from scratch. (Think Instagram > versus Google Plus). Then the best use of someone's time might be to start as many social networks as possible on the possibility that o…

My rule of thumb is that if you can get 100M monthly users you can sell your company for $1B. It doesn't matter what your product or platform or service is. It doesn't even matter if you have any revenue. If you can get a hundred million monthly users then you can sell for 1 billion dollars.

At least that's what I've observed over the past few years. Twitch was bought $1B with a mere 50M users. But highly engaged users with successful monetization. So it fits my model. WhatsApp was bought for almost $20B under the assumption they could hit 1B users. A 2x premium for being so large.

So roughly $5 to $20 per user. That seems pretty reasonable.

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#144

Post by bloaf » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 4:59 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #107

dexwiz wrote: post #2

Amazon bought two things with Twitch: 1) A social community 2) a monetization model. The video service itself is secondary. The past several years has shown the social communities grow organically. But its hard to make users adopt one. If you build it, they probably won't come. It's easier for a big company to buy one up than start one from scratch. (Think Instagram versus Google Plus). Second, Twitch is one of the f…

> The active engagement of Twitch viewers can often help boost sales for games that prove popular among live streams. Can users purchase games (from Amazon) directly through Twitch? Amazon could offer streamers a referral cut, too.

I feel like selling the games directly on a twitch stream page would be a little too boorish. It would make every streamer immediately look like a paid advertiser.

I think a smarter strategy would be to let the streamers advertise peripheral items (wanna order the beer I'm drinking?) and to encourage the viewers to buy things for the streamers to feature in their show (especially the crafty streams.)

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#145

Post by dzhiurgis » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 5:35 AM UTC

AndrewWarner wrote: post #27

caminante wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

26 page transcript...how long did this take?

One hour. Think of it as a mini-book. I shared the Google Doc so you can save it to your Gogle Drive and read it when you have time for something longer than a blog post.

Is there an audiobook version? ;-)

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#146

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 6:21 AM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #143

ChuckMcM wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this thesis holds true: > The past several years has shown the social > communities grow organically. But its hard to > make users adopt one. If you build it, they probably > won't come. It's easier for a big company to buy one > up than start one from scratch. (Think Instagram > versus Google Plus). Then the best use of someone's time might be to start as many social networks as possible on the possibility that o…

My rule of thumb is that if you can get 100M monthly users you can sell your company for $1B. It doesn't matter what your product or platform or service is. It doesn't even matter if you have any revenue. If you can get a hundred million monthly users then you can sell for 1 billion dollars. At least that's what I've observed over the past few years. Twitch was bought $1B with a mere 50M users. But highly engaged use…

Unless I see evidence to the contrary, I assume that all startups follow your model - i.e. they don't give a damn about the product they're making[0]; they need something that'll give them a good growth curve in order to get bought for $alot[1].

I wonder if and when people get tired of that. I also wonder how user engagement/retention numbers evolve globally over time; if almost everyone treats their users like cattle, I won't be surprised if more and more people started treating on-line services as throwaway.

[0] - corollary: all the "we're trying to change the world", or "our passion is to help you do X" they say on their page is just lies.

[1] - that also applies to paid services; I've read that classic Maciej's post[2] about paid vs. free services, but companies aren't stupid; if being paid signals trustworthiness and leads to more users, they'll make the service paid

[2] - https://blog.pinboard.in/2011/12/don_t_be_a_free_user/

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#147

Post by ufo » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 6:22 AM UTC

thecolorblue wrote: post #45

What is a good example of a twitch stream to show how great live streaming can be?

It was an one-of-a-kind event but Twitch Plays Pokemon was a pretty memorable experience and something that could only happen on a livestream with 100,000 people in the IRC chat. Basically, someone set up a livestream that played pokemon games in an emulator using commands taken from the stream chat. With the complications of a 30s video delay and thousands of people pressing buttons at once, some really interesting things ended up happening.

https://www.reddit.com/r/twitchplayspokemon/wiki/intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WziMRN9WoVk

Today they are "between games" though so the stream is just playing Pokemon Stadium in a loop

https://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#148

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 6:27 AM UTC

zyxley wrote: post #83

Animats wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's going to be interesting litigation. There's a legal analysis under UK law here.[1] It's not too helpful. WIPO suggests that legislation may be desirable to give game developers control over videos of games.[2] Their country-by-country analysis is all over the place. It's a tough call. Arguably, the player is the performance, against the game as a backdrop. That could be argued as a transformative use. If you m…

> Arguably, the player is the performance, against the game as a backdrop. That could be argued as a transformative use. I'd say that's absolutely the case for a lot of the most popular streamers and Lets Players. Jacksepticeye is an easy example: the distinctive parts of his videos aren't the games, they're his exaggerated reactions to whatever's going on in them. You could replace the actual game video and sound wi…

Are there any good streamers who play games without unnecessary commentary? There's nothing that annoys me more than someone ruining the mood by starting to talk shit in a middle of an important plot point or emotional scene.

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#149

Post by ufo » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 6:31 AM UTC

b3b0p wrote: post #127

thecolorblue wrote: post #45

What is a good example of a twitch stream to show how great live streaming can be?

It's seasonal / semi-annually if I remember, but the Games Done Quick streams are a treat. https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick https://gamesdonequick.com

They have one event every summer (SGDQ) and one every winter (AGDQ)

Re: Twitch could be a $20B company within Amazon

#150

Post by blahi » Sat, Aug 27, 2016, 6:38 AM UTC

phit_ wrote: post #89

esturk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. On Youtube, you can instantly rewind the video like you do on a video where as on Twitch, you have to go to the videos section, wait for that section to be uploaded before rewinding. There's also 60 fps on Youtube which beats Twitch's 30 fps.

twitch can do 60+ fps, lots of people on twitch stream 720p60fps, it's arguably the best balance between quality and bandwidth cost the only limiting factor is the bitrate limit of 3500 https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/1253460-broa...

Yeah... try it at the LCS.

Twitch's tech blows in every aspect imaginable. Shitty site, shitty flash, shitty mobile experience, shitty stream. It's a pity they have such a stronghold on streamers+viewers.