Google Announces YouTube Gaming

An anonymous reader writes: Today Google announced a major new rival to Twitch.tv: YouTube Gaming. In addition to providing structure for the gaming content YouTube already serves (like walkthroughs, reviews, "Let's Plays," speed runs, etc), it'll also be a livestreaming hub for those who like broadcasting their games or watching other people play. Each video game will have its own dedicated page, and users will be able to add games to their "collection" to see other users's videos relating to those games. YouTube Gaming will have its own dedicated app, as well as being a part of the YouTube website. Google is also touting a recommendation engine that will help gamers find more content to watch.

Comments

copyright = nope

[locopuyo]

Streamers play music while they game, and even gameplay videos on youtube get flagged for copyright violations just for having the in-game music playing.

Streamers aren't going to move to a system they can't make money on. This will fail and end up like Google+.

Re:copyright = nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Every streamer I've watched has said the're not going to touch google streaming with a 10 foot pole.

Every single one of them has said that the automated copyright control system triggers spuriously and cuts off your stream in a manner that pretty much kills your viewership. (And can cite personal experience, or can point to contemporaries that have had the same problem)

No viewers = no money = no streamers

Google's copyright system is asymmetric in that it can be triggered gamed by trolls or even people that will outright steal your content. Or it can be used to silence you when you say something critical about a companies works or practices. (Looking right fucking at you Sega.)

Re:copyright = nope

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that any different than Twitch? It's been my experience, with a significant time on the Twitch and UStream platforms, that Twitch's content matching is some of the most awful and draconic of the matching algorithms. They don't block out live ads, but for a 30 minute chunk after "last detection" (so first detection to last detection to +30 minutes), you receive NO advertising or clickcount revenue, and can't export "highlights" with ANY sound.

Oh, and most of my livestreams don't have extra music playing over it, just the game's natural sound and music. Nearly every week I have 2-3 claims on my streams, because the matching algorithm... MATCHED THE GAME MUSIC. And in about 50% of cases, it's ignored by their "appeals" department. In my case, it's not a LOT of revenue lost, but if I was making serious bank, it'd be a serious problem.

Stop thinking Twitch is some end-all be-all. The competition posed by YouTube (where most Twitch streamers dump their highlights, actually) will only improve the situation.

(You'll notice I didn't say much about UStream, and that's because UStream is terrible unless you're broadcasting homemade liveporn. No, really.)

Re:copyright = nope

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least Twitch doesn't take down your stream while you're STILL streaming and then take away your rights to stream and make money entirely by disabling monetization on your entire account... Which is what google does with their current livestream feature on youtube. I will take the 30 minutes of cut audio over losing the whole thing just because some music label is throwing a fit.

Re: copyright = nope

[Anonymous Coward]

People have been paying money to watch other people play games for quite some time now. They called it sports.

Re: copyright = nope

[dissy]

Wait, what? People pay money to watch other people play video games?

Yes, for the past 8000 years or so. Where the fuck have you been?

PayPal vs Network effect

[DrYak]

I'd move to it in a heartbeat.

You would, but not necessarily all the shops you visit would too.
Welcome to the network effect !

PayPal is designed in such a way that both ends of the transaction (both the merchant and the client) must use PayPal as a payment processor.
Even if you decide on your own to switch, that won't have any impact on the merchant. If they don't switch, you'll be forced to keep PayPal to be able to buy from them.

Contrast the situation with SEPA payment in Europe:
You and the merchant are completely independent and free too choose a bank.
You can have your account at any bank of your liking.
The marchant can use any bank that pleases them.
As long as both banks follow the SEPA standard, you can do payment and buy your goods (with a couple of days up to one week delay).

Bitcoin (the protocol) was design partly to address the same problem:
you and a merchant can choose any payment processor or other source of bitcoin (the units) to do a transaction.£
The merchant could be using any payment processor that they would like (bitpay, coinbase, etc.)
You could choose instead to go for an exchange (BTC-e) or obtain your BTC by meeting someone face-to-face (localbitcoin) or even actually store them in a wallet (If you feel like gambling on the completely crazy unstable exchange rate).
As long as both ends of the transaction follow the bitcoin protocol, you're both free to pick any solution you like. You can do payment and buy your goods (with a couple of minute delay).

Google was seeking out contact Twitch user info

[lemur3]

Not that long ago Google was posting tasks on the Amazon Mechanical Turk crowdsource job platform that asked people to visit a Twitch user account page which was provided to the worker.

They wanted to know if that twitch user had a link to a YouTube page.... they wanted to know if there was an email address..... they wanted to know if the user had had some sort monetization link on youtube.. and if there were email/twitter contacts.

I wonder if this has anything to do with that.

were they just judging how much overlap there is between the communities?

were they seeking out 'popular' people to contact them?