Yesterday the news broke that Google would be acquiring the internet game-livestreaming company Twitch.tv for a price of $1 billion. Details about the deal have not been released yet, but the owners of Twitch seem happy to have received such a large amount for their company. Twitch is a livestreaming website that allows people to watch others playing video games and communicate with the channel host. Google first inquired about purchasing the company back in May for an all cash deal through their YouTube division.
The livestreaming industry has been growing significantly and drawing tons of attention to professional gaming. 1.1 million users live stream every month and over 50 million users watching as well. The video games industry has been growing very fast and livestreaming is the reason for that, especially with its recent transition onto consoles with the Xbox One and PS4. Leagues and tournaments have become more popular as well because there is enough money in the business that it can offer large rewards for the top competitors, and most can be attended live as well as watched online.
Youtube has also started streaming live videos and events like music festivals and video game tournaments and has slowly been integrating itself with Twitch, most recently that if a live Youtube video was streaming from a Twitch user it would notify users. The purchase makes a lot of sense for Google and it’s a very smart industry to get into right now. Google having the live streaming user base and technology now opens up the door for tons of events to be covered live every year and further expand the industry as a whole. The addition of Twitch will easily take Youtube to the next level and really allow them to increase the amount of events that are streamed through the internet.
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