Twitch is the go-to service for streaming videogames for the world, being its own unique little spot on the internet for gamers to have after YouTube became a place where copyright was king and creativity was pushed aside for the pennies-on-the-dollar you get for every few hundred views. So it goes. This weekend the internet went into an uproar over this rumor that Twitch is being sold to YouTube/Google for $1 billion. Yes, Twitch has probably sold to Google for $1 BILLION, which is a lot of money.
There are both positives and negatives to this arrangement, which is rumored to be made official by the end of the week. According to reports, the deal is still in progress so nobody will comment on it, but it seems like a done deal. The negatives are very obvious here; YouTube is the land of DMCA notices and ad revenue to go to whomever the YouTube algorithm decides should get the money, which can be awkward. Imagine you put the time and effort into editing a video about a game, just like the hundreds of videos that you’ve seen on YouTube. Then imagine that the ad revenue goes to a record label for a snippet of a song you used or to a game publisher because you posted footage of their game.
That is YouTube right now and it has made life a bit more difficult for content creators on there. This has turned a lot more gamers to Twitch, where you have a community specifically set up for gaming and for watching games as they happen. There are even cool features in PlayStation 4 games right now where some games will poll Twitch viewers and adjust the game according to how they respond. Needless to say, Twitch is becoming a big deal right now.
The only thing holding Twitch back is their hardware, which is frustrating, to say the least. Streaming to Twitch means that you are operating on a pretty hefty delay. Being on a Skype call with someone who is streaming on Twitch means that you’ll see what they are telling you within 30 seconds or so, which can be kind of awkward and make being interactive a bit more difficult. The positives are that big GOOG has the ability to change this and bring Twitch up to snuff, which will be great as long as they don’t try to make the world happy with monetization like they do on YouTube.
What do you think, is this a good thing or a bad thing?
