Streaming karaoke game Twitch Sings released free on PC

Twitch sings, a karaoke game that is the first video game developed in part by Twitch itself, is now available as a free title on Windows PC. Emmett Shear, co-founder and CEO of Twitch, announced the publication in his keynote speech at TwitchCon Europe in Berlin on Saturday.

Shear announced at the origin Twitch sings back to the TwitchCon 2018 in October, presenting it as a game that Twitch was developing with Harmonix Music Systems. This seems to be a natural fit for both companies: Harmonix has more than two decades of experience in creating music games and Twitch, as a live broadcast platform, puts the emphasis on Activity of streaming as an attraction in itself.

Of course, Twitch is not just for video game streaming. The platform previously had an "IRL" category that it had replaced last summer with tags for specific types of non-namaming activities, including "Music and Performing Arts". This category currently has nearly 2 million subscribers. .

Twitch, Harmonix Music Systems / Twitch

"It's both a game and a dissemination tool," Twitch sings Executive producer Joel Wade told Polygon in an interview on Monday that "it allows people to easily generate content on their Twitch channel." It's a smart game for Twitch – a way to capitalize, formalize and encourage something that many Twitch users already do. And the design of the game matches the nature of the community-based platform.

Twitch sings connects directly to a user's Twitch account so that they can stream directly to Twitch as if they were playing on a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One – no sophisticated streaming configuration is required. (Experienced streamers can continue to use equipment such as capture cards and applications such as OBS, the game supports any input considered as a camera stream.)

Livestream viewers can interact with the singer by clapping with Twitch's emoticons and bits, giving ovations (which the game counts as a measure of performance) and voting on the song that the person should sing next. Through a deep integration with the platform, the audience can follow and even subscribe to a streamer from the inside. Twitch sings – and the game will make a big deal of those times when they happen. In addition, when a viewer supports the streamer with encouragement, follow-up, or subscription, his or her own avatar may appear on the live stream as a member of the virtual audience. Banners and fans can also be embarrbaded by the challenges at play, where viewers ask singers to do something ridiculous, like singing like a cat.

Twitch, Harmonix Music Systems / Twitch

The goal of the team with Twitch singsSaid Wade, "was trying to capture the energy of what he was doing playing live." Of course, many people have no interest in singing live on the Internet. Twitch sings is an online game – it streams songs from the cloud, so you need to be connected to the internet to play – but it does not require users to play their songs. And you do not need a webcam either; shy people vis-à-vis the camera may simply appear as an avatar.

If you want to do it, you can do it afterwards: the game records your performance (video and / or audio) and displays the clip later, which allows you to adjust the volume of the audio sync / audio before publish video online. And one of the coldest elements of Twitch sings is the ability to perform duets – but not simultaneously. It's deliberate: the purpose of the feature is to allow asynchronous singing in multiplayer mode.

For songs that support duets, such as Disney's "A Whole New World" Aladdin, a player registers by singing a part and then uploads the performance on Twitch. Then another person sings the second part about the recording. (Since the duos involve completing the other part of a prerecorded performance, you can also make a duet with yourself.)

Twitch, Harmonix Music Systems / Twitch

As far as the songs themselves are concerned, none of them – out of the nearly 2,000 with which the game is launched – is original. Unlike the SingStar series from Sony, every melody of Twitch sings is a cover "in the style of". Wade said the company had partnered with "one of the world's largest producers of karaoke strains" and that most sound-like people were doing the job. (In reality, the voices do not always sound very close to reality, but it does not have much importance, because you will not really hear them.) The catalog covers a wide variety of music. artists, genres and periods. , with the list including Elton John, Ke $ ha, Garth Brooks, Run-DMC, Pearl Jam, Bruno Mars, James Etta, OutKast, Pat Benatar, Sia and nearly 60 Beatles songs.

Wade told Polygon that the library will evolve according to what people like to sing. He noted that the team had chosen some songs because of their importance to the Twitch community, explaining that A-ha's "Take On Me" was "a thing on Twitch. "

It seemed a bit odd that there are no difficulty settings in Twitch sings. The game badesses how well you hit the notes on a scale of zero to three stars. The better you perform, the more coins and XP you will earn. (The coins unlock the customization elements of your avatar and XP increases your profile in the game.) At the same time, it's not really an offline solo experience, even if it supports this form of play .

"People use it very differently than they thought," said Wade, adding that some people in the closed beta had already sung for 14 hours in a marathon.

Twitch, as a platform, is about playing online and singing is one of the most enduring and popular forms of public performance. Like with everything about Twitch, Twitch sings will be what the community does.