Hey, gaming fans: YouTube has some good news for you.
The video hosting site’s owner, the omnipotent Google, has revealed plans for a new channel for gamers to stream and broadcast games and e-sports.
It will be called YouTube Gaming, and will try to attract the game freaks in all of us to follow the site to see live streams of games, video play, news, reviews, and other to-dos.
Google announced the plans ahead of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, and are devoted to creating this brand new site for hardcore game fans and followers from the YouTube site.
Product manager Alan Joyce announced the news on Friday (June 12).
He said:
“Today, the gaming world is much more diverse than the one I grew up with, and the community has created new formats that have made gaming more collaborative and interactive. On YouTube, gaming has spawned entirely new genres of videos.”
“YouTube Gaming will be a destination for users to find gaming videos, live streams an Internet personalities. The app and site will feature individual pages dedicated to more than 25,000 games,” he added.
Sounds pretty damn cool, Alan.
He went on to explain that if a user began searching for the word “call” on the app, “Call of Duty would be the first result, not Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call me Maybe.”
That sounds like music to your ears, gaming fans, right?
Or, rather games to your ears…
The tech giant is also working to improve live-broadcasting and competitive gaming, by creating singular links needed to schedule the broadcast, making it a much more user-friendly experience all around.
The move seems to be in response to gaming channel Twitch—which was acquired by Amazon only last year—and hopes to create a new fan base and entice users to switch from Twitch.
Although Ryan Watt, YouTube’s head of global gaming content, seems to think pitting the two sites against each other is sensationalisation, and that the “YouTube vs.” Narrative is overblown.
He told Business Insider:
“I think it’s sensationalised because it’s a fun story to write, talking about YouTube vs. The only other significant gaming platform […] But I don’t look at it that way.”
YouTube Gaming is scheduled to debut this summer in the United States and United Kingdom.
The app and site will preview at E3 on Tuesday (June 16), where game and site footage will be available.
If you’re lucky enough to be at E3, definitely check this one out.
So PopWrappers, what are your thoughts on YouTube Gaming? Or are you a diehard Twitch convert? Let us know.
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