Google takes on Twitch with YouTube Gaming

YouTube Gaming image 001

Originally announced two and a half months ago, YouTube Gaming went live this morning as the search giant’s Twitch competitor slowly but surely comes into full view.

Basically a YouTube built for gamers, the all-new YouTube Gaming website is live in the United States and United Kingdom at gaming.youtube.com with a selection of live-streaming videos showing people playing various games.

Much like Amazon-owned Twitch service which allows people to stream their gameplay videos and others to watch it, YouTube Gaming was designed to host gameplay videos, video how-tos and walkthroughs pertaining to popular games and more.

“This summer, we’ll launch YouTube Gaming, a brand new app and website to keep you connected to the games, players, and culture that matter to you, with videos, live streams, and the biggest community of gamers on the web—all in one place,” said Google back in June.

Promising “more videos than anywhere else,” the website will give more than 25,000 different games their own page, with dedicated channels from game publishers and YouTube creators.

You can subscribe to individual channels as you normally would on the main YouTube website, add a game to your collection, check out recommendations based on the games and channels you love, search for specific content and more.

Subscribing to a channel lets you receive a notification as soon as it starts a live stream.

The website takes advantage of a batch of improvements that Google recently rolled out to YouTube, including silky smooth videos at sixty frames per second and the ability to start a live-stream immediately without the need to schedule a live event ahead of time.

YouTube Gaming logo medium

Although Twitch is immensely popular and has more than 1.5 million broadcasters and more than a hundred million visitors every month, YouTube Gaming has the ubiquitousness of YouTube, its powerful technology and brand power.

Google has also promised to launch a standalone YouTube Gaming application for the iPhone and iPad and we’ll make sure to keep you in the loop and tell you all about it as soon as it launches in the App Store.

Follow @YouTubeGaming on Twitter or visit the official website.

Will you be taking YouTube Gaming for a spin?

Source: Google