In what I find is a really interesting move, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced this change during TwitchCon (where if you are streaming on Twitch, you can simulcast to any other live streaming platform with some guideline caveats (as noted in the above article)).
I dislike opining often on these live streaming services because I got it so wrong in the past (like the time when I thought YouTube Gaming would take a chunk out of Twitch, not fully appreciating that one of the huge assets/drivers for Twitch is its community (with each streamer having their own communities comprised of that macro-community); something which I do understand now as to why even the biggest streamers can sign up with a different platform, but are unable to pull the majority of that community with them to that other platform like when some high profile Twitch streamers were given these huge deals to stream on Kick).
YouTube Gaming as a dedicated mobile app was discontinued in 2018, and most of its previous web site based branding/functionality was rolled back into the main YouTube site. Other competitors like Mixer (known previously as Beam), went nowhere even after it was acquired by Microsoft in 2016; it didn’t matter when it wooed personalities like Ninja from Twitch (Microsoft closed the service down in 2020). In the mean time, Twitch has maintained its dominance in this space even through rocky times with its own content creators. It’s basically going to take something else that is a whole lot better/paradigm changing to make an impactful dent into this dominance.
Now I know I said I dislike opining on this subject, BUT I think I do have a generally better feeling as to why I believe that Twitter’s game streaming attempt (shown during a very limited initial demonstration) is not going to go anywhere because their infrastructure is not even close to being able to do this sort of video broadcasting. The other issue is Elon Musk himself who has alienated various demographics with many of his awkward edgelord style “antics” since purchasing Twitter (but none of that is new since that behavior existed before at both Tesla and SpaceX; and folks like myself knew who the actual founders and brains were behind those companies vs. the person with too much money who comes in and buys them, and then takes way too much credit for the innovations). Musk is of course a polarizing figure who is one-third of the “PayPal mafia” (along with David Sacks and Peter Thiel; all of whom were very much supportive of apartheid in their home country of South Africa).
All three of these individuals are extremely high-functioning in terms of their ability at understanding a lot of topics (this is why Musk can read technical manuals and regurgitate them, but isn’t always accurate when fed misinformation which looks/sounds technically correct). But their views on cultures/societies (and their actual inability to relate to everyday people) don’t endear them to various demographics (something which has been on full display on Twitter with Musk ever since his buyout).
My point is that Musk has inserted himself into the picture (with this edgelord personna that is more fitting of someone who has yet to learn life’s biggest lessons and gained adult maturity from those life experiences) to where this aspect is going to detract portions of the gaming demographic (the community aspect that is a big part of what makes Twitch dominant) from ever becoming invested into his “everything” app objective. Just like with many other sociopathic “tech” billionaires, I don’t put these individuals (back in my time, it was Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, and a host of other tech “luminaries”) on any platter because they tend to function in their own realities (that is why there was that thing called the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field back in the day when I worked for that fruit company).
Digressing, I personally stopped using Twitter and social media in general several years ago (though I did recreate an account back in 2022 ahead of TERA PC’s closing just to take a shot at Gameforge regarding how they weren’t even acknowledging its 10th anniversary in the west) mainly because I felt that social media in general was not conducive to where I wanted to spend my time. I do miss the interactions I had with mostly smaller gaming related individuals/content creators from that era though (like DeviousDevikS, InsipidComments, Kiwibirding, N3rdix the Nerd, and a few others).
Twitch allowing this simulcasting to other streaming platforms has the potential of making it even more difficult for other competitors (including Twitter’s ambitions) to gain traction. At the moment, I am not sure what potential anti-competitive angle this might have given how Amazon is already a target of the US Federal Trade Commission when it comes to monopoly power in the online retail space. Twitch and Twitch Prime are entangled with that retail arm (not to mention AWS). Gaming is big business, BUT related activities such as this online live streaming part of the business, isn’t well understood by the older generation of policymakers (it’s similar to how long it took policymakers to see the light on reigning in big tech where the damage has long been done). Generally speaking, this is going to be something to watch going forward.
