YouTube is the world's second largest search engine, processing more than three billion searches each month, but that doesn't mean the Google-owned giant is content with its platform or where it ranks among its competitors.
YouTube is taking gaming to a completely new level with the announcement that they're launching their own gaming content platform-called YouTube Gaming-which experts believe will compete with, and very well may make Twitch, extinct.
For those that don't know, Twitch is an Amazon-owned live streaming video platform that focuses primarily on video game content. According to its website, Twitch has at least one million monthly active broadcasters who are using the site to broadcast their gaming content to the masses.
Like Twitch, YouTube Gaming will be a standalone app, with its own domain dedicated to video game-related content, where users can broadcast, upload, and watch content from their favorite games across the globe.
According to YouTube, "YouTube Gaming is built to be all about your favorite games and gamers, with more videos than anywhere else. From "Asteroids" to "Zelda," more than 25,000 games will each have their own page, a single place for all the best videos and live streams about that title. You'll also find channels from a wide array of game publishers and YouTube creators."
In addition to the big announcement, YouTube is also making a beneficial change for its broadcasters. Live events will no longer have to be scheduled out ahead of time, and those live streams will now get their own dedicated link instead of users having to share multiple links for one single live stream.
This is a strategic move for YouTube, as 15% of its content is related to gaming. That statistic, combined with the growth and popularity of Twitch, certainly have to be driving factors behind YouTube creating it's own gaming specific app for users.
According to TechCrunch, YouTube has followed the blueprint that Twitch laid out for its platform, as YouTube Gaming will have pages dedicated to specific games, and each page will display collections of channels and videos as well as content directly related to the title of the video.
And if you're YouTube, why not follow that blueprint, right? Twitch has clearly done a great job building up its platform and increasing its users, but my guess is that YouTube Gaming will blow Twitch out of the water. YouTube isn't the second largest search engine in the world for no reason, and with it being a Google-owned company, YouTube has the capital and brains to make their new gaming platform a huge success.
If this turns out to be a success-which I think it will be-I wouldn't be surprised if YouTube broke its other popular video categories out into their own apps, expanding its reach and giving users their own genre-specific portal.
YouTube Gaming is slated to be released sometime this summer in the U.S. and the U.K., as YouTube has yet to announce a hard date for the launch. Visit https://gaming.youtube.com/coming_soon to get notified when the app goes live.
Google/YouTube and Twitch images via Shutterstock