Video games are one of YouTube's most vital products. With a variety of video game personalities, trailers, gameplay videos and livestreams, the popular video site continues to be one of the many places to find videos of games online. Another place is Twitch, its solely gaming-focused competitor. As part of its goal to make YouTube the best place to show gaming content, YouTube announced its latest product called YouTube Gaming.
Rather than existing as a section on YouTube, YouTube Gaming will be its own website as well as an app available on both iOS and Android platforms. Viewers can filter through content in three ways — Games, Feed and Channel. At launch, over 25,000 games will have their own page. Publishers and YouTube celebrities alike will also have a big presence.
Each user will have their own "collection" of games that they follow on the site so that they can easily access the latest trailers or gameplay from an upcoming title. Subscriptions make their return as well. When a publisher or celebrity starts a livestream session, you will get a notification about it so you can stay up-to-date with their content. YouTube Gaming will also provide additional recommendations on other titles that you might be interested in based on your current game preferences.
The main focus of the new site is livestreaming, and YouTube is trying new methods to attract a larger audience with live content. One of the new features was actually introduced last month in the form of being able to livestream content at 60 fps. On top of that, viewers can rewind a stream and easily catch up to the live content. Chat is improved during the stream to reduce latency, but moderation is also upgraded so that any offensive language is quickly removed.
Finally, each live session also automatically converts to a YouTube video so you can watch it later.
For those who are setting up their own streams on YouTube Gaming, site developers are improving the system so that you no longer have to schedule the stream prior to a broadcast. This means more freedom to start playing and show content at any time.
The site is expected to launch sometime this summer, but with E3 just a few days away, its official debut could be very soon.
YouTube Gaming provides a full suite of content to keep gamers entertained and informed about their favorite games, but with such a heavy focus on livestreaming content, it's obvious that YouTube is trying to lure viewers away from Twitch, which has a strong foothold in livestreaming. With the launch of YouTube Gaming, it will be worth seeing the number of viewers on the site versus the growing library of live content on Twitch.
In fact, Twitch already had a few words to the new site on the block via Twitter by mocking the failure of Google+ and ending it with Twitch's own "Kappa" emoji, which indicates sarcasm.
“@YouTubeGaming Welcome Player 2. Add me on Google+.#kappa"
Game on.
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