Google owned video site-YouTube has launched "YouTube Gaming App" for watching live streams of people playing video games. It would to be a close competitor to Amazon's Twitch.tv and Daily Motion.
Initially, Google had proposed to take over Twitch.tv, but the bid got run over by rival tech giant Amazon, who bought it for almost $1 billion. In retort, Google has launched its "YouTube Gaming App," to bank on the fast-growing game streaming market.
YouTube Gaming would host a directory of over 25,000 games that would have their profile page, reported The Guardian. The website would be available globally, while the iOS and Android Apps would be active in the US and UK only for the time being.
YouTube Gaming is the third entertainment category to highlight's Google's innovative strategy among rivals. The first to roll out was YouTube Music Key, which is in beta testing phase. YouTube Kids app followed with a launch in the US on February, 2015.
"Gaming is big now," said YouTube's gaming head, Ryan Wyatt. He added, "We're doing billions of hours of watch-time a month, with hundreds of millions of users. It's astonishing."
The Guardian reported that the 10 most popular games channels on YouTube had generated over 2.2 billion monthly video views between them, according to OpenSlate.
YouTube's biggest star "PewDiePie" (aka Felix Kjellberg) reportedly earned over $7.4 million in 2014 from his channel and related sponsorship programs.
"Maybe some YouTube creators who aren't currently streaming anywhere else will start," Wyatt said. "You'll start to see some of your favorite creators start to do live shows."
The Next Web News reported that viewers would also be able to chat with other members during live streams, using the "YouTube Gaming App." It would also stream at 60fps.
The online-video giant is still trailing Twitch, which has integrated with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One gaming consoles. However, "YouTube Gaming App" is making its own moves in phones to simplify streaming and capturing content.
