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As soon as you hear about ‘Twitch’, the popular streaming website owned by Amazon, you think about the variety of video games being streamed on the website by thousands of content creators. But there is a vast room for growth in other spheres as well. Twitch has outgrown its specialised gaming audience with the site being used by up to 1 million people at any given time.
Research firm Newzoo has predicted that the streaming market will grow up to 55% by 2020 to a valuation of $1.4 billion. Streaming has become an international phenomenon and now big technology and media companies are looking to get a slice of the action.
Twitch CEO & Co-Founder Emmet Shear, talked to CNBC at the annual TwitchCon event held in California saying that “One of the biggest changes for Twitch over the past year is just the way that video games and streaming have started to cross over into the mainstream”.
Facebook is turning its sights to gaming, as they recently added more tools to their Gaming Creator pilot program to provide more support for content creators. In September, 21st Century Fox invested $100 million into social broadcasting platform Caffeine, the platform is dedicated to broadcast eSports, video games, entertainment, and sports events.
Shear also spoke about what makes Twitch so great by saying “I think the difference between Twitch and any competition is that degree of hyperfocus on the streamer. As a result, we just build better tools and a great community for that.”
Four years ago, Amazon dished out a mammoth $970 million to acquire Twitch, since then Emmett Shear has focused on further expanding the platform. At the company’s TwitchCon event, thousands of pbadionate gamers were present and the winners received millions of dollars in prize money. The concluding weekend of Fortnite’s $10 million Fall Skirmish event drew in as many as 4 million unique viewers who watched almost 24 hours of live-streamed content. Gaming isn’t just the future, it’s the now!
Twitch has 15 million daily active users with over 2 million unique content creators and broadcasters using the site every month. One of the most popular musical artists of the 21st century, Drake appeared on Ninja’s stream highlighting the popularity of the website. Ninja has the most followers of any streamer on Twitch with 12 million according to TwitchMetrics.
Twitch recently partnered up with American sports leagues like the NBA and NFL, the company is looking to grow a portfolio of streamers and producers to broadcast other content besides gaming. The Twitch model encourages streamers and audiences to engage with one another creating a harmonious community. Twitch has it all, from Let’s Play’s to 24-hour charity streams. Emmett Shear announced at TwitchCon that the company has doubled the amount of money paid to Twitch partners and affiliates
The Future of Streaming in India
Streaming in India is still in the nascent stages with people trying to figure out what appeals to the Indian audience, but there is a lot of potential for growth. In our country, gaming or streaming as a profession is looked down upon because of cultural issues as well as parental pressure especially to follow the most sought-after professions instead of their pbadion(s). There are certainly a few prominent Indian streamers on Twitch like Xyaa and CaptainArya who can take Indian content to a global audience.
In April, PCMag India interacted with an Indian streamer Dhruv Gupta aka Ris3y who talked about his struggles and experiences of streaming in India at length by saying “Game streaming is a science in itself. It doesn’t rely on metered reactions like hype but instead puts a focus on the streamer themselves. There is only one good rule to becoming a good streamer and that boils down to the answer for the question – If I take away your game, your console, your metrics, equipment etc. will you still be able to convince people to watch your stream?” and as Dhruv found out, saying “Yes” to that question takes some time.“For the two months when I started, I streamed content for 0 viewers. I mean I was sitting there on my birthday streaming instead of hanging out with people. The title of the stream was ‘Happy Birthday to Me!’ and there was no one watching,” Dhruv said.
This period of struggle taught him a lot as he built upon his experiences in gaming, drama, and writing to create something entertaining. “It was demoralising at the start but looking back now what kept me going was positive thinking. I mean even popular streamers who pull in thousands of viewers per stream went through this at one point and eventually things started turning around,” he adds.
Streaming is all about building a strong community online and the one Dhruv wanted was where “if one member had a problem, a hundred people would turn around and offer a solution”.As the number of viewers went up, Dhruv faced the usual problem of this internet age, a toxic community. “I had two choices. Either I nip it at the bud right now or lay back and let things continue as they were. In retrospect, it was an easy decision to make,” he said.
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