
A YouTube built for gamers - cleverjake
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-youtube-built-for-gamers.html
======
robertcorey
I think this will be a successful for the following reasons:

Previous Twitch competitor (Owned3D) was successful in gaining viewership by
poaching streamers from twitch with better deals.It seems like it was pretty
easy for personalities to transfer their fan bases over. Many twitch streamers
already post highlights of their streams to youtube so they've already
established a presence there. I would also think that youtube will be better
at serving video advertisements and handling copyrighted materials on stream
(currently twitch handles copyrighted music by muting archived videos that
contain it, whereas youtube places an advertisement for the song at the bottom
of the video).

~~~
nailer
YouTube shuts down videos with footage Nintendo games in it automatically.
They have an awful reputation for one sided copyright enforcement amongst game
streamers.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
YouTube does that at the request of Nintendo due to their ad revenue
program[0]. You're leaving out a bit of important context that _completely_
undermines your point.

The problems with Nintendo are not limited to the situation you describe, and
they've made a few attempts to make it better and usually made it worse. The
long and short of it is that Nintendo has a rather unique position in the
industry that because they created the game, they are entitled to a kickback
of revenue you make on your _own_ content. If you are not enrolled, they treat
it just like a Content ID claim, as if I were to upload my favorite album and
attempt monetization.

Content creators and Nintendo do not get along in general. Ask Rooster Teeth,
TotalBiscuit, PewDiePie, Angry Joe, and others. This has been extensively
covered by everyone I named.

Back to the point, YouTube is entirely absolved of fault, and to claim
otherwise betrays misunderstanding.

[0]: [https://r.ncp.nintendo.net/guide/](https://r.ncp.nintendo.net/guide/)

~~~
pjc50
I don't think the copyright law on who owns footage of games is entirely
settled?

~~~
baldfat
It really doesn't matter while the game companies as a whole have figured out
that the best thing for their business is if the game is popular on Twitch
equals a lot more sales. Once companies see streamer as hurting game sales
that would make this an issue again.

------
bookwormAT
I don't understand why Google can not roll this out internationally from the
start. Why only US and UK?

The content is not subject to old copyright contracts, which is typically the
argument not to launch something in Europe and its crazy copyright situation.
And twitch is available everywhere.

If Google wants this to become a success, shouldn't they roll this out to as
many people as possible and hope for network effects?

~~~
codewithcheese
Maybe because their algorithms to organize the videos by game and type have
only been optimized for English US and UK submissions.

~~~
Mithaldu
Unlikely. Many european gamers from various countries game exclusively in
english, since that is the original language for almost all games. Heck, the
most famous game streamer is a Swede and all of his content is in (horribly
squeaky) english.

~~~
LMAlVvQjSGj
Only AAA titles are translated into anything but English, and even those are
just translated into a handful of languages.

I know people from all over Europe, they all expect gaming content to be
English.

I'm Norwegian, but I run all my software in English. Linux distributions are
the only ones having trouble with my 'strage' locale and language setup, but
that's fully due to incompetent devs.

------
cinbun8
Youtube's goal would be to get people over to their gaming product instead of
heading over to twitch. Plans for monetization come later. That should not be
a concern considering twitch does not stream properly for many users. My
friends on Steam share the same opinion (At least the ones in Asia).

Streaming any game in real time and getting enough folks to watch it is still
a problem that needs a solution with more polish. Twitch does not keep up and
`Steam streaming` does not work half the time. I'd stream games on
gaming.youtube.com if they did a better job at it and have a product focused
around that.

I can foresee a future where youtube can get those eyeballs on
`gaming.youtube.com` instead of twitch.tv. Youtube is already popular for
gaming reviews.

Related:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch.tv#Acquisition_by_Amazo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch.tv#Acquisition_by_Amazon.com)

~~~
Too
Streaming a game in real time with low bandwidth requirement is a problem
we've had a solution to since the dawn of multiplayer games but that seems to
have been forgotten in modern games: Spectator mode.

You use your game client to connect to the same server that the actual game is
playing on, only receive the small packets of player information and then
render it locally.

This will of course eventually also overload the server with enough spectators
but some kind of forwarding proxy should be able to solve this easily.

Voice commentary and a professional host choosing the best camera angle is
still missing but this is also something that could be embedded into the game
if the game developers really wanted to.

~~~
__m
not really an option since it would require that the viewers have the game
installed. It's a complete other format for shows that focus on a single game.
It seems overkill to burden the viewers with dedicated clients (and a step
backwards?) for a problem on the side of the streamer.

~~~
detaro
A dedicated client is a lot of effort, but also gives way more options for
viewers. IMHO it is a thing for a different audience: It's great for games the
viewer is highly invested in and also plays, but a giant hassle for casual
viewing. Outside of a few special examples it probably doesn't pay off.

~~~
minot
A player broadcasting his view has value of its own. In League of Legends, we
don't see the player's perspective in spectator mode. We don't see what they
type in team chat. We don't hear what they're saying.

A dedicated client has its benefits as well for the same reasons. You can
change the view and look at things from different perspectives or look at
places that the streamer (who is not necessarily the player I guess) is not
looking at.

------
DigitalSea
It took long enough for Google to cater to gamers. After Twitch was acquired
for a large sum of money, it was only a matter of time before Google decided
to go after gamers. Most gamers have Youtube presences anyway, if Google can
take all of the great features and things gamers like about Twitch and then
add some additional features on-top, it'll be a success for them no doubt.

Curious why they're launching in the US and UK first though. Couldn't find
anything that explained why the delayed release, surely it's not because of
copyright reasons.

~~~
tehbeard
The major hurdle is goning be cultural rather than tech or features.

Youtube comments vs. Twitch audience

------
ken47
Twitch has already won over most of the potential audience for computer game
streaming. Computer gamers tend to be a loyal bunch, and they know that Twitch
is a site by and for gamers. If I had to guess, YouTube Gaming will have
trouble making headway.

~~~
batiudrami
The problem is Twitch infrastrucutre is not good enough to stream properly in
many countries. A 1080p/60fps stream has only about a 6Mbit bitrate but in
Australia will not work, even on a connection ten times as fast. Plus, without
a special agreeement that only top streamers have, Twitch takes 50% of
subscription money - I'm sure Google can afford smaller margins to lure
streamers over.

The problem they will face is not that gamers are loyal so much as for many
people "live video game broadcast" _is_ Twitch, so people are unlikely to
notice live streams if they're elsewhere. This is solvable though - most
streamers upload their VODs to YouTube anyway so they can easily notify users
when a streamer is live.

~~~
thefreeman
You are confusing megabits and megabytes. You likely read that it requires
minimum 6 megabytes per second to stream 1080p/60fps. That would be 42
megabits. And that is a minimum. Depending on your settings you could need
much more then that. Not to mention Australia has notoriously bad internet in
general.

~~~
fernandotakai
I have 150/50 fiber internet in brazil -- 50% of the time, i cannot watch a
1080p twitch stream, while i can watch a youtube livestream.

twitch infrastructure is notoriously bad for anyone that is not american.

~~~
Dylan16807
Often twitch gets terrible for me until I load a VPN, and I'm in America.
They're probably getting screwed on peering.

------
barney54
So how does Hacker News think that Twitch and YouTube Gaming are going to work
with VR. Seeing the gamer and their reactions is part of the appeal of Twitch,
but that changes with VR where you can't see someone's eyes.

Amazon (who paid nearly $1 billion for Twitch) and Google really believe there
is a real future watching people play games, but one real challenge seems to
be the VR integration.

~~~
shock-value
VR at present is of no immediate concern, as it's simply barely available yet,
and games aren't yet robustly supporting it.

But even going forward I'd posit that it'll only occupy a (small) niche.
Consoles are going to have trouble supporting it -- _not_ due to their never
being "powerful enough" (as consoles will of course get more powerful over
successive generations) but rather simply due to the _power disparity_ needed
to render a game normally vs VR. Developers aren't going to want to release a
game at vastly lower detail settings for VR than for general TV-based
consumption (and they won't forgo the TV-based audience, except perhaps for
niche lower-budget VR-only titles).

Moreover, some of the most popularly streamed titles (anything not first
person -- League of Legends, Hearthstone, etc.) are simply not suitable for
VR.

~~~
TillE
People forget that many genres of games will _never_ make it to VR in any
meaningful way. Even in a far-future holodeck scenario, strategy games don't
change a whole lot.

But it's true that VR is an immersive experience which I can't vicariously
participate in the same way I can watch someone playing Hearthstone now. In
many ways VR games are likely to remain largely unsuitable for streaming.

~~~
zyxley
> Even in a far-future holodeck scenario, strategy games don't change a whole
> lot.

I dunno, the classic Civilization style could benefit quite a bit from it.
Imagine having a virtual giant globe that you can arbitrarily turn and zoom as
the main interface.

Even the limited number of platformers with a third-person view on the Oculus
Rift hardware are quite successful, since the false depth perception helps
with fine control.

------
zitterbewegung
The money isn't in the ads or the subscriptions it is in the tips. I wonder if
they have a system for that.

~~~
VieElm
Twitch doesn't make any money from streamer tips as most of that is done
through a link to PayPal. Twitch has no tip system.

Popular streamers like Lirik have said they much prefer getting a subscription
through Twitch than a donation as it's much more reliable. Some streamers like
Summit1G probably does make way more money through tips because of their
personality some people just throw money at them, but again none of that goes
to Twitch.

~~~
dogma1138
Ehm, twitch has it's own donation system (which works trough paypal) e.g.:
[https://www.twitchalerts.com/donate/tsm_theoddone](https://www.twitchalerts.com/donate/tsm_theoddone)
(and ofc boobies!)
[https://www.twitchalerts.com/donate/pink_sparkles](https://www.twitchalerts.com/donate/pink_sparkles)

If you use a paypal link they also get the referrer unless you simply post
your PP email and make people doit manually, but since the introduction of TA
i think that's against the EULA.

~~~
Bhullnatik
Except that [https://twitchalerts.com](https://twitchalerts.com) is not
affiliated with Twitch, it's unsure if they have a deal to get some of the
revenue.

~~~
Tinyyy
They take 1% of the donations.

~~~
Bhullnatik
Yes, twitchalerts does. Not Twitch.

------
mangeletti
I'm glad to see competition in the space, but I have to admit that I read this
article as, "We at Google noticed that Twitch was gaining quite a bit of
traction, so we decided to use our behemoth size to see if we could
successfully copy them.".

I think Google might be starting to get scared. There are many threats to
their search and web advertising hegemony, including Apple's announcement to
include an ad blocker in iOS9. Google is quickly realizing that their long
term survival might be in YouTube.

------
revanx_
Am I the only one that dislikes twitch because you need adobe flash player to
do anything and is on generally a javascript bloated website?

~~~
Lynbarry
Have you tried using livestreamer? You can just ignore the bloated website and
watch streams in vlc with it.

It also allows me to have my 30 tabs open and watch a stream on the second
monitor without troubling firefox.

~~~
revanx_
Had no idea this exists, thanks!

------
Sir_Cmpwn
I've done a lot of bitching about small websites where the devs didn't bother
to test in Firefox. But from Google? Seriously?

~~~
giancarlostoro
Context:

[https://gaming.youtube.com/coming_soon](https://gaming.youtube.com/coming_soon)

Their coming soon page is a mess under Firefox.

------
craked5
The problem i see is that Twitch already has a very strong culture in the
gaming community. You see Twitch emotes being used everywhere on the internet
and i started seeing people on my campus use it on everyday language. I know
its silly, but the chat and all the "underground" culture around it is a major
player in Twitch's success.

~~~
dogma1138
Kappa!

------
jotm
First time I hear of Twitch, but I watch a lot of those play-through videos on
Youtube (20 minutes of that crap saves me days of wasting money and time
playing the actual game :-D)...

------
scotty79
Imagine how would it all play out if game producers enforced their copyright
as strictly as Hollywood or Music industry does.

Namely no game footage allowed unless you pay as as much as we want because
it's derived work.

I doubt there'd be Twitch or YouTube Gaming.

------
spdy
Its all about the money they are willing to invest. If streamers with a
viewership of 2-3k people on twitch can maintain/increase their income they
will probably inclined to leave twitch.

And on the other side you need culture to make it work. Aliases instead of
real names / emotes etc.

It will be a success the viewer base of yt in every demographic is to big but
maybe not in the ballpark google wants it. Twitch will survive this and has to
innovate which they dont really do atm.

------
frik
So will the auto tag and transfer old videos with gaming content to the new
site? Will uploading gameplay content on regular YT be prohibited than?

I would prefer if YT stay one entity and Google should just improve their
"Search" on Youtube! It's weird that the search on Google in the video tab is
a lot better than the search on Youtube directly. Youtube search functionality
hasn't been improved since 2005 or so.

------
ejcx
One thing that would be neat is if google rolled out their own streaming
software. I've streamed a little on twitch for fun (mostly programming and
some gaming) and I found all of it pretty bad.

Another neat thing is how much Replay value people's streams could get
instantly being on youtube. I just checked twitch, and nobody really watches
previously recorded streams. The most watched recorded videos this month in
Gaming Talk Shows was only a little over 1000, while League of Legends most
was in the 400s. Maybe youtube can really increase and monetize that for
streamers.

I would also be super interested in streaming other things too, which is just
now starting to get popular on twitch. I would love to be able to stream me
programming and interact with other computer folk that way. I've done it on
twitch but didn't stick with it long enough to really give it a chance.

~~~
legohead
I was previous streams all the time, since I'm usually available when my
favorite streamer is. It's also kind of convenient because you can skip around
to the good parts. The one thing I really hate missing is the chat though. I
wish they'd save chat history and show it alongside saved streams.

~~~
s3bast0m
try this extension ReChat for Twitch™
[https://www.rechat.org/](https://www.rechat.org/)

------
mattryanharris
I don't see it succeeding unless they get Riot Games to exclusively stream on
YouTube. That amount of views League of Legends brings to Twitch is crazy.

~~~
barney54
Google can do some exclusives for tournaments and I have to imagine they are
already in talks with some top streamers on Twitch to come to YouTube.

This would be a good time to be a streamer with a lot of fans to get in a
little bidding war between Amazon and Google.

~~~
sombremesa
Amazon doesn't have YouTube's experience, and is somewhat short-sighted when
it comes to catering to content creators. Maybe Twitch employees could help.

------
downandout
I don't doubt that this will gain at least some traction. You can never count
Google out. But it is somewhat disappointing to see Google, which used to
pride itself on innovation, making dim copies of others' products long after
the market has been invented and grown.

I'll stick with Twitch.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> But it is somewhat disappointing to see Google, which used to pride itself
> on innovation, making dim copies of others' products long after the market
> has been invented and grown.

It is somewhat disappointing to see people constantly complain about the
cross-pollination of ideas.

~~~
downandout
Based on the post it doesn't appear that this is a quantum leap inspired by
Twitch. It's a dim copy, an also-ran. The only reason it has any hope at all
is because Google is behind it.

------
seivan
I hope they make official streaming clients to make the process much easier. I
had issues with streaming Mac OS with both sound as well as microphone input.

Would also like to see a #GameDev channel. Was pretty cool to see Unreal show
their stuff over Twitch.

------
tdkl
Do we still need G+ to comment on YouTube Gaming ?

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IsTom
Will make you use your real name? If so I don't see this going very far.

