YouTube to Acquire Twitch for $1 Billion (rumor)

Zaphid_sl said:

They are buying the whole game streaming business - nobody can compete with twitch currently and sure as hell not with Google backing them. They are also buying another generation of content creators and a small revolution in advertisement. The tech must be worth something, simply because there isn't anyone else doing anything similar on that scale, hitbox or azubu are laughably small.

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That's silly if you truly believe that. You can't buy the whole game streaming buisness like you are a dictator of the internet.
There were gaming sites before Twitch like Owned3D where Destiny streamed, and there will be sites popping up after Twitch is sold.

On the tech side Twitch doesn't do anything special that other streaming sites like Ustream etc are currently doing. The reason viewers like Twitch is the chat system allows people to make accounts easily that are not linked to anything, and the chat system is pretty simple instead of bloated like Ustream.

If viewers decide they are fed up with the way Google runs Twitch, and newer streaming personalities go to new sites Google won't have anything, but the Twitch name.


If you try to fuck with the Twitch viewership by imposing regulations on there favorite streamers, forcing them to link there twitch accounts with other social media, and shoving unblockable ads down their throats viewers will move one. Also if you make some streams unwatchable for people in other countries which is a large part of the Viewership of Twitch, they will find something else.

Not to mention if new streamers are forced to overcome the same hurdles as a new Youtuber does. You will see the newer generation of Gaming personalities go to a new site, and the old guard will fade away. Things move fast in the streaming business only takes one fuck up for your viewer base to turn on you completely.

Elerion_sl said:

If this means I can watch Twitch streams without unbearable lag, I'm all for it.

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How do you know your ISP isn't throttling it?

I dunno. What else is google gonna buy to expand and diversify? A couple of islands in micronesia?

The options are somewhat limited. They're swallowing up content delivery platforms in a big way and it makes a lot of sense.

I mean it's an analogy and flawed, but the Big 3 Television studios didn't happen by decree. They grew out of a business strategy.

From Googles point of view they can't lose. This is something that they tried on there own, and failed twice on.

So buying something that is already working with a viewership just makes sense. The problem comes if they fuck with it too much.
It's much easier for any competition to put together a start up streaming business then it would be to own a startup TV studio.


The other thing to look at is Twitch will become bigger therefore they will start making more money ,and that makes a business that didn't care before all the sudden give a fuck.

Currently, Its a grey area on what you can, and can not make money on in streaming. Any content provider can come in, and can say you are able to stream my game, but any money you generate will go to us.
We can already see this with Nintendo..

Then there is the whole music thing with streamers only able to stream music that is in the public domain. The FCC is trying to get involved with this as we speak trying to regulate streamers like they do with radio.

It was inevitable for this to happen. Everyone knew twitch was going to get bought out eventually. I didn't think it was going to be this soon tho, and I definitely do not like that Google bought it.
It's the end of public cable access shows IMHO, and we will get a much stricter form of entertainment both on the entertainers side, and the viewers side.


Heres another thing to ponder, Google is in the ISP business right now, and with the new acts it is not illegal for their competitors to throttle a site like Twitch.
This is famous right now with FIOS and youtube in some areas of the country.

I'm just gonna say that the rumors are false...

something like this Google/Twitch would have already stated something,

besides, Twitch chat would destroy' googles comment system... haha have you seen how YT does it's live streaming chat (bahahahhahahahahhaha)

Didn't we have the exact same discussion when Google bought YouTube? Blahblah, competition will swoop in and YT will die. Youtube seems to be doing better than ever, even after the G+ fiasco, because there is still no competition.

fuck this, give me back Yahoo Live! lol

Citz_sl said:

Didn't we have the exact same discussion when Google bought YouTube? Blahblah, competition will swoop in and YT will die. Youtube seems to be doing better than ever, even after the G+ fiasco, because there is still no competition.

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I did gloss over this before in the "Being a Youtuber" thread in the tech section of the forums. The subject was about Youtube alternatives, not streaming however. The big problem is despite Youtube's policies, it still gives it's users WAY more freedom on what they can post compared to the competition right now. Many Youtube alternatives try to beat Youtube by taking the 'high road for content' as they hold their nose up at homemade videos and Let's Plays.

Blip.TV won't let you upload shit unless it "adheres to a TV show format" as an exact quote from them. They will also cancel your account if you're not profitable enough. Metacafe has strong policies about posting videos regarding sexism, racism, too much violence, and nudity in videos. They can be really assbackwards about these rules too. (Ie. A scene from American History X with a black dude getting curb stomped = Ok. Playing Call of Duty and a 12 year old calls you a faggot = Not OK. A girl showing off her tits on professional photo shoot = OK. Showing off a fully nude body mod in Skyrim = Not OK.)

Dailymotion is just a piece of shit. Vimeo/Veoh has similar standards for videos that Blip.TV has except it's built more towards independent film creators. Pretty much anything that isn't a professional project gets rejected and they've been doing IP content takedowns YEARS before Youtube started with it's shit. Viddler is geared towards businesses/small companies and their bandwidth restrictions are hilariously bad.

People are practically begging for any of these companies to step forward and provide actual competition to Youtube by relaxing their current policies. Instead, they sit there with a thumb up their ass while ones like Viddler are dying a slow death.

Zaphid_sl said:

90% will always be crap, no matter how you setup your filter, 9% will be watchable and 1% good. Any kind of user generated content is like that.

But people will watch anything and you can run ads with anything, so ...

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Honestly, you could apply those estimate numbers to pretty much any situation that involves the general public at large. Think my job has about 10% of people I like to work with and the rest can go fuck themselves.

KCXIV_sl said:

fuck this, give me back Yahoo Live! lol

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man....lol! I really miss ylive, wish it would have stuck around.

@ur avatar. "hey where's my chop??"

Big Phoenix_sl said:

Isnt that the whole point of those sites though? Catering to a specific niche or genre.

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What you have is too many sites catering towards specifics instead of trying to be competitive with Youtube. Some of them are trying to fight over the same piece of pie so hard that they don't realize a few changes in their policies for video posting could generate the ad revenue they desperately need to stay afloat. Take Blip.tv for instance: A big part of their rise to power was the crew from That Guy With The Glasses jumping ship from Viddler to Blip.tv. Viddler took a nose dive almost instantly after this happened. Both Blip and Viddler are vying for the same niche of 'higher quality user content'.

People on their own forums begged Viddler to relax their policies to be more friendly towards the gaming community and simple homemade videos. This happened after the content ID/copyright fights on Youtube last year. Viddler's response was, "Fuck you! Full speed ahead Capt!" They're on life support now and have issues with paying their monetized content creators.

People have their bags packed and are ready to go but there's nothing out there. Dailymotion is the closest thing to real competition that Youtube has unfortunately. It's pretty hard to get your work taken down there but the audience is pretty slim.

This is what Google bought:Twitch

Drunk chicks camwhoring for money.