YouTube Gets Twitch-Like Global Emotes Starting With Gaming
Despite the advent of competition from YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming, the majority of gamers continue to use Twitch as their primary streaming platform. A quick glance at statistics from February 2020 reveals the impressive hold Twitch continues to have over gamers. At its 2020 peak, Twitch had more than 3 million broadcasters under its umbrella. According to VideoGamesStats, these broadcasters altogether attracted more than 15 million daily active users, translating to more than 1.4 million average concurrent users.
The numbers for YouTube, however, pale in comparison. Recent data from analytics firm Statista indicates that YouTube Gaming Live has been losing its user base since its peak figure of 871,000 concurrent users in late 2020 — to a little over 544,000 concurrent users in 2022.
While this still makes YouTube Gaming one of the world's most used livestreaming services for gaming, there is a clear scope for expansion. To hasten the process of attracting Twitch's dedicated user base over to YouTube Gaming, Google has introduced a similar version to one of Twitch's most-used features to YouTube Gaming.
YouTube Emotes: Everything you need to know
Starting today, December 6, 2022, YouTube Gaming viewers can use Twitch-inspired Emotes on the platform. The feature is explicitly targeted at gamers, given that YouTube's first sets of Emotes are exclusively gaming-focused.
Google describes Emotes as "fun sets of static images" that could be used to express emotions in YouTube comment sections and livestreams. What makes these emotes interesting is that Google did not actually make them. In the blog post introducing the feature, Google credits three artists for its initial set of gaming-focused emotes. These artists include Abelle Hayford, Guy Field, & Yujin Won.
for the times where words just aren’t enough… introducing YouTube Emotes! 🥳
now everyone can join in & react to all the biggest Ws across streams w/ new emotes.
we’re starting with emotes for Gaming but more types of emotes to come, stay tuned👀
more: https://t.co/H2iZYffWAS pic.twitter.com/rpTmVvnCtj
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) December 5, 2022
Users can access YouTube's gaming-focused emotes by clicking on the Smiley icon next to the live chat window. Clicking this option will open up YouTube's emoji picker window that lists all the emotes and emojis available for use. Like Twitch, YouTube emotes also have specific names and can be invoked by typing in the appropriate short code. In addition, YouTube also supports auto-complete of emoji short codes to make life easier.
While Google has limited these initial sets of emotes to be gaming-centric, the company has confirmed that it is working to bring more emote themes soon. Google, however, stopped short of revealing a timeline for the release of this feature, though.