YouTube is continuing its quest to pull streamers away from Twitch today, rolling out an expansion to its sponsorship program. Up until now, YouTube sponsorships had been available to a select number of users in a limited beta, but beginning today, they'll be available to a lot more content creators who run gaming channels.
Those of you who are familiar with speedrunning probably already know that Games Done Quick hosts two marathons each year to raise money for charity. Those marathons are announced months in advance and are able to attract tens of thousands of viewers, but in times of disaster, Games Done Quick has been known to spring into action in an attempt to raise money quickly. We're seeing that happen this week, as Games Done Quick has announced a new weekend marathon in which speedrunners from around the world will raise money for Hurricane Harvey relief.
Although YouTube is the household name for streaming videos in general, Twitch is still considered the granddaddy of the niche, but also lucrative, game streaming market. But despite its age and its fame, Twitch, now owned by Amazon, hasn’t exactly been that quick to jump outside the comforts of the web browser. Well, it’s finally here folks! The Twitch desktop app is finally out of beta and available for all to use. And it has everything that the browser version has, which may or may not be a good thing.
Destiny 2 is undoubtedly going to be a popular game, but it seems that anyone who may want to take advantage of that popularity and stream footage of it to Twitch or YouTube is in for some frustration. Bungie revealed today that it's going to make streaming the PC version of Destiny 2 something of a headache, but it may not be for the reasons you think. Instead of limiting what streamers can show like some other developers and publishers do, the issues with streaming Destiny 2 lie with the game's anti-cheat measures.
In addition to being the home of video game live streams (and the occasional food channel), Twitch has been gaining a reputation for hosting a number of marathon streams of aging TV shows. There's been one for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the Pokemon cartoon, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and even anime. Now the next one has been announced: the '80s arcade game TV show called Starcade.
One by one, these Twitch marathons keep coming. The topic of the next marathon will be anime, with Twitch partnering with Crunchyroll to show 15 seasons of different shows over five days. Unlike the other Twitch marathons, which all have served to launch a new channel or raise money, this new marathon seems to just be a marketing promotion between Twitch and Crunchyroll.
Facebook is once again looking to expand its game streaming efforts, announcing today a new initiative with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds developer Bluehole. With this new agreement, Facebook will now be the home of exclusive PUBG content each week. This may draw a considerable number of viewers in, given how popular PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is on Twitch.
Summer Games Done Quick 2017 is officially underway! It's a week-long marathon that features some of the best video game speedrunners from around the world. “That's all well and good,” I can hear some of you say, “but what is speedrunning and why should I care about Summer Games Done Quick?” Both of those are excellent questions, and I will answer those and more in this, the Beginner's Guide to Video Game Speedrunning.
Yesterday, Summer Games Done Quick 2017 went live on Twitch, kicking off a week-long marathon of video game speedruns. From now until sometime in the early morning hours of July 9, hundreds of speedrunners from around the world will be attempting to beat their favorite video games as fast as possible. They're not just attending this event to show off their skills (though that's a major part of it), but also to raise money for charity.
Back when Twitch first announced its IRL streaming category, it also revealed plans to update the Twitch app to allow for mobile streaming. It looks like we're getting closer to the launch of that feature, as Twitch has detailed changes coming to its mobile app. This update will add a fair amount of new features, chief among them being functionality that allows for streaming from mobile devices.
It would seem that Twitch marathons of classic shows are the hot new thing. What originally began with a marathon of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross later led to marathons for both Power Rangers and Mister Roger's Neighborhood. Today Twitch announced its next marathon, and if you happen to be a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, this is definitely one you'll want to watch.
Remember the glory days of TwitchPlaysPokemon? Twitch chat was working toward a common goal - beating Pokemon Red and Blue using only chat commands - and for that initial run, it was an incredible sight to see. Now, one Twitch streamer is giving us an evolution of the TwitchPlaysPokemon idea, but there's more at stake than just beating a video game this time around.
