Twitch is a video game streaming website including playthroughs of video games, broadcasts of eSports competitions, creative content, and more recently, music broadcasts. Content on the site can either be viewed live or via video on demand.
Twitch is an offshoot of their parent company Justin.tv. While Justin.tv was a broad category streaming website, it’s most popular category was gaming. Streaming of live gameplay quickly took off with large viewership. Twitch officially launched in beta program on June 6, 2011.
On 2nd October 2013, Twitch received a significant boost to its funding with a $15 million investment by venture capital. For a relatively new company, it was surprising to find Twitch turn profitable by 2013 itself.
The biggest boost to Twitch and eSports, in general, came when Amazon decided to purchase Twitch for a whopping $970 million. It is still one of the biggest investments till date
( after accounting for inflation over the years). The actual purchase was preceded by rumors of a buyout war between Amazon and Youtube over Twitch. Ultimately Twitch Chose Amazon over Google (Youtube )
Over the years Twitch has made several inroads into eSports. It does not restrict itself only to live streaming but also has significant investments in certain professional teams. Twitch bought out GoodGame Agency which owns significant parts of Evil Genius and Alliance teams.
Twitch has an early movers advantage in a segment which has still not reached it’s peak viewership levels. Viewership numbers on Twitch have become a testament to the success of an eSport. The two big titles by Game Developer Valve have seen tremendous viewership numbers over the course of the previous years.
With increasing numbers, Twitch has had to face certain issues. Lag is a predominantly major issue for a live streaming service. In late 2013, particularly due to increasing viewership and using a legacy Adobe Flash plugin to present video to desktop users, Twitch had issues with lag, predominantly in Europe.Twitch has subsequently added new servers in the region. Also in order to address these problems, Twitch implemented a new video system shown to be more efficient than the previous system. Initially, the new video system was criticized by users because it caused a significant stream delay, interfering with broadcaster-viewer interaction.Twitch staff said that the increased delay was likely temporary and at the time, was an acceptable tradeoff for the decrease in buffering.
We take a look at the Growth of Twitch over the years
Twitch in 2014.
2014 was the first major year for Twitch. After exponential growth and funding from ventures over the 2012-13, Twitch was bought out by Amazon after close competition by Google. Google’s decision to forfeit the race in buying Twitch stems from antitrust concerns. Google owns video platform Youtube, which is massively popular.
The amount of time people spent on Twitch in 2014 doubled from 6 billion to 12 billion minutes per month. This roughly translates into a significant boost in both number of viewers and the amount people spent on the Streaming platform.
2015 – Twitch continues to grow
Twitch continued it’s growth in 2015. This year saw eSports booming exponentially with several major tournaments in the works. Prize pools increased multi-fold.
Twitch rode it’s way to new heights on the back of the eSports wave.
TwitchCon was announced for the first time in 2015. The first Twitchcon was held at San Francisco on September 25-26. It was a huge success with 20000 people attending TwitchCon 2015.
Twitch has grown to become an integral part of anything related to eSports. After having ridden the eSports wave till now, Twitch has been investing into upcoming eSports games. With Mobile Gaming seen as the next big thing in eSports, Twitch is investing millions into new games on the mobile platform.
Twitch has been a partner and the sole streaming platform for almost all the tournaments held over various esports. There has been almost no exceptions over the course of the past few years. The growth of Twitch and eSports happened simultaneously.
Recently there are certain events that have been moving away from Twitch slowly. This is not a knee-jerk reaction to any particular issue. But Twitch’s monopoly over the lucrative eSports streaming market is under threat.
Competition To Twitch
One of the earliest competitors to Twitch was MLG. MLG had it’s own streaming platform MLG.tv. The MLG organization controlled most of the thriving Call of Duty industry in 2013.The first major news of MLG trying to poach streamers from Twitch came in 2013. One of the most popular Twitch streamer “NadeShot” announced that he will be switching to stream COD on MLG exclusively. This came after renewed efforts by MLG to get streamers on it’s platform.
There were news reports as late as March 2015 of MLG paying streamers tens of thousands of dollars to switch to it’s platform. This move made lots of sense as Twitch is still a relatively new company. The Streaming industry is still in its nascent stage and the monopoly of Twitch means that it is always threatened by new competitors.
In an article in 2015, EsportsObserver explains in detail how Twitch chat might be the reason for its downfall. With Facebook streaming launching and other social websites catching on the streaming business, it might see certain viewers switch to Facebook / Youtube for much calmer and cleaner Chat experience.
In recent years, we have had several tournaments slowly shifting focus away from Twitch. While there have been no public acknowledgment of the same, but Twitch is trying to get way more out of deals in the current scenario. With it’s massive presence in the streaming world, it is expected for Twitch to gain leverage. But with many competitors such as Youtube and Facebook breathing down its neck, it is facing stiff competition.
Youtube is one of the websites which has had a similar growth story to Twitch. Youtube sported live streaming of Valve’s International in 2014. However, a service that lacked functionality meant a bad experience for viewers with lots of buffering and low-quality streams. Youtube made significant changes to its streaming platform over the next one year.
When Youtube showcased The International in 2015, the experience was flawless. In terms of experience, Youtube was definitely equal to Twitch if not better
Many would argue that Youtube has more to offer than Twitch in terms of quality and video playback. Due to HTML5 support used in Youtube as opposed to Twitch, uptoYoutube off up to4 hours of playback. Youtube also allows viewers to playback at various speeds. This is in stark contrast to Twitch where playback is still very laggy.
Tournaments not on Twitch
TheMLG Vegas Overwatch tournament in 2016 announced it would be streaming it’s Tournament on Youtube and it’s own Streaming platform. There was no mention of Twitch and it’s services.
In January 2017, ESL pro League announced it would be streaming the ESL pro League Season 5 exclusively on Youtube. This comes as a major boost for Youtube as i would bring massive audience from Twitch to Youtube to watch the CS finals. It would also ensure a much cleaner chat environment and give new users a feel of how playback feels.
Big Deals not involving Twitch
Riot Deals with MLBAM
Riot and MLBAM unveil a$50 million annual league of Legends partnership through 2023. The deal carries a $50 million per year guarantee for Riot Games on average, and will run through to the 2023 season.
The deal is heralded as a game changer for the industry and in commercializing eSports.
Activision looking at Facebook livestreaming
In another report, Activision Blizzard was actively looking to use Facebook Streaming for it’s games. It started with it’s MLG.tv live broadcasts for Facebook.
Activision Blizzard Media Networks, headed byformer ESPN CEO Steve Bornstein, launched its new eSports network and programming during the MLG Anaheim Open, a two-day “Call of Duty: Black Ops III” tournament on June 10, 2016.
ESL’s Pro League exclusive on Youtube
ESL’sexclusivity with Youtube comes in the wake of WESA signing a deal with youtube. While there are more organisers expected to come under the WESA banner, this would only increase the viewership on Youtube.
We will wait to see how the two companies grow over the next 1 year. The upcoming year is one of the major years for eSports as we have several big organisations investing into Esports on various fronts. Naturally some of these companies will want to unsettle the traditional esports companies from their comfort positions. In the end a battle between Youtube and Twitch would mean better services for the viewers.
Which Streaming platform do you prefer?
