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YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

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Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#121
post #88
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, looks like it's time to start another competitor :)

On a back of the napkin calculation, how much outgoing throughput would one need to be able to stream to ten clients directly on say 720p (~30 frames per second)? I was wondering if it would be possible to create a set up where people can stream from home without any third party in between. Is that even possible for larger audiences?

Twitch currently accounts for ~1.5% of all U.S. bandwidth.

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitch community is also pretty toxic. Most of the time the biggest streamers put their chats in sub mode (paying supporters) to avoid it.

Seems a bit like Something Awful . They have a one time fee before you can post anything.

I've seen this model successfully used on a variety of small and medium sized communities, Metafilter likely the largest example. While it doesn't seem to generate runaway fortunes, it allows online communities to survive the onslaught of spam and trolls.

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#123

It's worth noting that Twitch partially became popular because it wasn't YouTube , and gamers could stream without content restrictions (e.g. copyright and region) Miraculously, this could end up making YouTube comments even worse .

I think it's important to take notice that Twitch's recent problems (the buffering problem, chat problems, the delay in general) are problems with their ability to cater to the big tournaments which causes me to really not be all that surprised if this turns out to be true. The ways they've handled the tournaments have really disillusioned many streamers. I don't know if there's any better way for them to have dealt…

Pretty sure the delay in general is due to them moving to a new system about a year or so ago.

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#124

Compared to recent other aquisitions, 1 billion somehow seems like a bargain. Twitch has clear potential to play an important role in the future in TV and entertainment. Compare that to i.e. Snapchat...

How much of a bargain does the original Google acquisition of YouTube, for $1.65 billion, seem today? Less than one tenth of what Facebook are paying for WhatsApp!

YouTube wasn't super huge when Google bought them though, I'd suspect twitch has bigger brand recognition now than YouTube had then.

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#125
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an avid gamer and this is the first time I've heard about Kamcord, so that's must mean something.

Kamcord is Mobile Gaming focused first, whereas Twitch is on PC~

Who streams mobile games?

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#126
After reading this headline my first reaction was a verbal "aww man!" I don't really know why. Is it that I don't trust google? Maybe, but I think it's more that I like supporting the little guy and not the BnL's of the world. When I hear of an acquisition like this, thinking of Valve, I fear the brands I love will never be the same.

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#127
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a back of the napkin calculation, how much outgoing throughput would one need to be able to stream to ten clients directly on say 720p (~30 frames per second)? I was wondering if it would be possible to create a set up where people can stream from home without any third party in between. Is that even possible for larger audiences?

Twitch currently accounts for ~1.5% of all U.S. bandwidth.

Slightly off topic but If I remember right, about a question of viability someone at Justin.tv (I guess now twitch) said (this is about four years ago) that playing like a thirty second ad clip can more than cover their operational cost of streaming for an hour. I guess what I wanted to hear from that was that streaming is cheap. Scale probably matters a lot though.

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#128
Twitch is massive in the Eve Online community along with other MMOs precisely because it isn't Youtube and allows streamer to play whatever background music they chose.

I can a fairly substantial move away from it if Youtube begin applying the policy that removes all audio, if even a snippet of something copyrighted is detected.tracks for

Re: YouTube to Acquire Videogame-Streaming Service Twitch for $1 Billion?

#129
post #12

That’s sad. Less competition, worse both for those watching and making content. Makers of (gaming-related) content for YouTube – worried about the future of YouTube – have often already been relying on Twitch to provide them some stability, to stand on more than one leg. This competition also insured that YouTube couldn’t do literally anything. Makers of content had a place to go if things didn’t work out. This is a…

I don't see how this means less competition. Who else is even directly in the game streaming business?

It’s not all about streaming. Or it can be all about streaming. YouTube and Twitch were very much direct competitors, even ignoring YouTube’s live streaming.
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