As you may have heard the last couple days, Google launched a live gameplay streaming app and website called YouTube Gaming. Its direct competitor is Twitch, the Amazon-owned video platform that dominates the video game streaming landscape. Could there be a new rivalry brewing between the two? If you bought a camera for Youtube videos and are looking to start producing – what does YouTube Gaming offer to the gaming community that Twitch doesn’t?
At first glance, YouTube Gaming seems like Twitch, only sporting a different skin and containing existing YouTube content. Upon closer inspection, it actually offers some cool features and advantages that Twitch doesn’t have.
YouTube Gaming Advantages
A smoother, cleaner and more user friendly interface since YouTube doesn’t have to depend on ads filling up the background and has a better archival/searching system in place.
The video player is significantly better, due to Google’s years refining magical windows, large, and small, of seamless entertainment. It doesn’t rely on Adobe Flash like Twitch does, so there’s little to no seizing or crashing.
The DVR mode automatically records the last four hours of any stream, allowing viewers just joining in on a stream to catch up on what they’ve missed.
An already established presence and a large user base results in Twitch having the most live content currently. The platform’s even holding its first ever fan convention, TwitchCon this September!
IRC is used for chat, allowing users to easily moderate their channel with bot programs. YouTube says it doesn’t have a chat API yet, but is working on one.
There is no annoying connection with copyright holders, so videos are not taken down as frequently as YouTube does, almost as on a whim at times.
In conclusion, YouTube Gaming seems very promising and is off to a good start. Even with competition now, Twitch is not doomed to fail. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and it’s unlikely that a ton of already established community members will make the switch right away.