
Twitch is acquiring popular video game community and software maker Curse - rch
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/16/twitch-is-acquiring-popular-video-game-community-and-software-maker-curse/
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nacs
Curse is terrible. It's like the (current) Sourceforge of gaming sites. I
seriously don't know why Twitch/Amazon would consider acquiring it.

~~~
SandersAK
Discord is starting to reveal their ability to pull streamer communities off
of Twitch.

This is most likely a bulkhead acquisition to anticipate the growth of Discord
and to try and keep those same streamers in the fold.

Twitch gets the massive community reach of Curse, plus they also get all the
current momentum Curse has to be a Discord competitor.

It's a fantastic acquisition, if a little defensive.

~~~
tgb
I'm not familiar with it, so how is discord a competitor to twitch? It looks
like a newer TeamSpeak to me.

~~~
Macha
Are streamers hosting their chats on Discord as opposed to Twitch's chat
system, which tends to break down after a certain level of activity?

Only thing I can think of.

~~~
mc42
Full Disclosure: I really like Discord, and use Twitch daily.

Discord has more easily manageable chat roles, eg: Moderator, Helper, Regular,
Supporter, etc. Twitch chat is nothing more than simple IRC, and relies almost
entirely on bots for the more complicated stuff. Discord also has voice chat
built in, whereas Twitch has none for their chatters.

Discord also has a better documented API and libraries in a lot of languages.
Overall, Discord (despite using an electron app...) is simply a better
chatting product.

~~~
jamie_ca
"despite being an electron app", I'm way happier using Discord than I am using
either Hipchat or Skype.

Discord is a really well-put-together app, has text and voice chat that do
their jobs, and get out of the way. The only complaint I have is that there's
little to no support for searching history, but for an app focusing on live
"community" chats, that seems a reasonable compromise.

~~~
imtringued
I don't like browser based desktop apps. They have all the disadvantages of
native apps but lose most advantages of HTML5 apps by being platform specific
(apparently these is no discord desktop for linux) and require you to download
an entire browser engine along with your app. You have to install them as
opposed to just visiting an URL. They are not as lightweight as conventional
desktop applications and don't perform as well. I'd rather see the browser
getting more powerful. The cat is out of the bag already. If they're going to
use a browser anyway, why can't they just run in my browser of choice along
with all the other websites?

~~~
JasonSage
> apparently these is no discord desktop for linux

The Discord developers are working on this. It's not just web components but
also native dependencies as well, so it's understandable I think if the Linux
version comes in a little bit behind macOS and Windows versions where the
majority of the gamer market is.

Next up, I'm starting to like when companies use desktop HTML5 apps. HTML and
JavaScript does enable developers to move quickly with their interfaces, and I
find them to be generally much more well-kept than native counterparts, where
there's more inertia in making interface changes. A good comparison gamers
will be familiar with is Steam. The Steam UI is written in a valve-
proprietary, CSS-like language that I imagine is less performant than CSS.
It's also REALLY buggy, so much so that I'm surprised that Valve has not
already moved to an Electron app for Steam. If they did they'd be able to
iterate quickly on interface improvements which they certainly don't do now.

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Trisell
Twitch is dying? They had 258k+ people watching The International. There were
130k watching an EULCS quarterfinal today. And those are just a couple of
streams of the thousands that are online at any given time. Not to mention the
popular streamers who have 10 of thousands of subs who pay $5+ a month which
Twitch gets part of. Twitch is most definitely not "dying."

~~~
tantalor
People pay $5+/mo to watch gamer streams? That can't be right.

Edit: Found an example,
[https://www.twitch.tv/products/leagueofgeeks/ticket](https://www.twitch.tv/products/leagueofgeeks/ticket)

$5/mo for some random features and no ads, with "limited exceptions", so not
actually ad-free. What are you paying for?

~~~
iherbig
They don't pay to watch, they pay to support the streamer.

Most streamers have subscriber/donation/cheer notifications appear on-screen
in some way. Making partner on Twitch (which enables subscriptions) requires
the streamer to have a consistent number of viewers each time they stream, and
they must stream fairly often.

It's not uncommon to see streamers with a fairly sizeable number of
subscribers any given month.

~~~
tantalor
Alright, I understand that. You suggest it's an ethical decision rather than
economic; that streamers _deserve_ the support. But why?

I fund a few YouTubers on patreon, because they create content in the
traditional sense, e.g., research, writing, filming, editing, etc. That's hard
work.

Streamers don't do any of that; they literally sit in their basement and play
video games all day. Why do they need support?

Sure, watching a stream is entertaining, but when I think "supporting a
content creator", I have to imagine that my support enables their creativity
in some way. Does a streamer with more support produce better content than a
streamer with less support?

The only thing I can think of is more support might allow a streamer to devote
more of their time to streaming.

~~~
pdkl95
> Streamers don't do any of that; they literally sit in their basement and
> play video games all day.

You seem to be missing what they do: they are _entertainers_. They aren't
"playing video games" all day; that's just the medium. People come to see the
entertainer. The most successful streamers create a unique character that
people want to see, often regardless of the specific game being played.

Some people also integrate legitimate review and and critique into some of
their shows (not to be confused with the current plague of "reviews" that are
actually paid native advertising).

> Sure, watching a stream is entertaining

See, you do understand. Being an entertainer is work. Just like the standup
comic, the better streamers/youtubers know they are putting on a _show_. It
may be unscripted, but that may make the job harder requiring a quicker wit.

> The only thing I can think of is more support might allow a streamer to
> devote more of their time to streaming.

That's the point. If you like someone's work and want more, paying them so
they can spend more time creating is a good idea.

(as others have said, some are also a kind of club/community manager where
they also maintain other things such as a community game server or
website/forum)

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goeric
Discord will likely grow to the value of Twitch was at (when it was acquired
by Amazon) in the next couple years, it's a really big space.

~~~
xenihn
I feel this way too. I was amazed at how much better Discord is in comparison
to Ventrilo and Mumble when I first used it.

~~~
ben_jones
I feel like Ventrillo and Teamspeak were marketing themselves to businesses
and tried to cram in enterprise features instead of polishing their interface
or smoothing out rough edges. Conversely discord markets to gamers and if
you've ever talked to an indie dev you'll have had your ear chewed off on the
value gamers put on "polish".

Regardless, props to discard. I've never used it but I downloaded it today due
to this thread (which is ironic because Twitch purportedly bought curse to
prevent that very thing!).

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niftich
Previous; announcement from Twitch:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12300381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12300381)

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aurelius12
Was this basically an acquihire? No price disclosed. I would be very surprised
if this was any kind of successful acquisition, given Curse has taken $60m in
funding.

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Aissen
It seems like yesterday when Twitch was on the verge of closing down. Is it
profitable yet ?

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neaumusic
twitch web client sucks and breaks every time. discord > curse too. amazon is
full of ego

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languagehacker
That doesn't sound terribly promising for Wikia / Fandom.

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cloudjacker
spend the money while it lasts!

