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Amazon To Buy Twitch For $970 Million
Dave Knott (2917251) writes Amazon has agreed to acquire the live game-streaming service Twitch for approximately $970 million in cash, a move that could help Amazon bolster its position in the fast-growing business of online gaming and give it technology to compete with video-streaming rivals Netflix and YouTube. The acquisition, which has been approved by Twitch's shareholders, is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Google had for some time been reported to have interest in acquiring Twitch, but those talks cooled in recent weeks. Google was unable to close the deal, said sources familiar with the talks, because it was concerned about potential antitrust issues that could have come with the acquisition.
They should have asked for it in gold bullion ;-) I doubt COMEX could come up with the requisite 746,154 troy ounces and we'd see a gold boom like never before!
Plus, who wouldn't want 51,165 pounds (23,208 kg) of gold?
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
You haven't even experienced Twitch chat yet.
Why should it surprise you that people enjoy watching good videogame players? They're been watching good sports players for centuries. Shit, people will pay thousands of dollars for a Superbowl ticket these days in the nosebleed section.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
For those not familiar with Twitch, every stream contains a "Now Playing: (Game)" thing with it, and you can select which game you're playing from a pre-defined list of games.
Bets on how long until that become a link straight to Amazon to buy said game, and how long until streamers become Amazon affiliates and start getting money for driving people to buy their games off Amazon?
Because that's the only angle I can see Amazon having here: trying to get gamers to grab games off Amazon. (And they do sell digital game downloads, so they do compete with things like Steam.)
Maybe Amazon can fix some of Twitch's more recent problems like the horrendous stream lag that makes it impossible for streamers to communicate with the stream chat since the stream now has something like 30 seconds of latency between streamer and audience. Then there's Twitch's new weird anti-piracy thing where they mute audio if they detect that the audio contains a copyrighted song (hint: for video games, that's always) and whatever other issues people are complaining about Twitch these days since I never bother to use it.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
2500 years ago, the Ancient Greeks gathered by the thousands to watch naked men grapple each other and throw sticks in the air.
1500 years ago, the Byzantines gathered by the hundred thousands to watch men ride in circles in carts.
500 years ago, Europeans all over the continent dressed up in hundreds of pounds of metal and ran into each other waving sticks.
50 years ago, Americans began watching young men throw pieces of pig hide at each other by the millions.
Curiously, the Apocalypse has failed to manifest itself for any of these events. Rather, Classical Athens, Justinian's Constantinople, Renaissance Europe, and Cold War America all tend to be considered civilizations at the height of their political and/or cultural dominance.
Somehow, I suspect that I'm not going to be meeting the Four Horsemen anytime soon because of Twitch (unless I'm watching someone play Diablo, maybe).
Correct. Bezos isn't a billionaire by chance. He definitely saw the writing on the wall before everyone else.
And keep in mind that Amazon sells digital games for BOTH hardcore gamers (Steam customers) AND casuals (Android).
Well there's one plus to this though. It's Amazon buying it instead of Google. If Google had bought it, Twitch would've definitely died. They were buying to knock the competition out of the market, as Google has been trying to get gamers to stream or post on Youtube. If Amazon is buying it there's hope it'll stay more or less intact. They might be able to bring some licensing to bear for all those Twitch streams that have been DMCA'd and muted. Amazon Prime music streaming might be able to prevent it or some of it.