Google’s YouTube has reached a deal to buy Twitch, a popular videogame-streaming company, for more than $1 billion, according to sources familiar with the pact.
The deal, in an all-cash offer, is expected to be announced imminently, sources said. If completed the acquisition would be the most significant in the history of YouTube, which Google acquired in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
I watch a lot of YouTube and Twitch for gaming, and in an ideal world, I can definitely see the potential for a great close cooperation between the two. Sadly, the world is not ideal, and I have a bad feeling about this. One of the reasons Twitch is so good at what it does is that it doesn’t deal with stuff like Content ID. If Twitch is to be part of Google, it suddenly becomes an incredibly attractive target for all kinds of lawyers – and thus, Content ID-like crap.
It’s GoogleVideo all over again. Google appear to lack imagination. Could they build a streaming platform? Yes. Only as a reaction and engineered with a complete lack of excitement, stunted by dull-arse branding.
I would not get good odds betting on Google+ accounts being mandatory at Twitch soon enough. No Sir, I don’t like it.
It can be a good news for someone else to re-built it again, and we can use it then until facebook buys and ruins it.
Back then I liked Google Video more than Youtube.
I hope this wont go through. Everything google touches on the web seems to turn to poop lately.
I’m surprised Twitch have got away with it up until now anyway, considering how popular the service has been.
Also, Youtube is pretty dead these days – it’s rare for people to go to youtube and find stuff, more likely they get sent a link via facebook, etc., or it’s embedded on some site or other. So no-one thinks of the Youtube brand anymore, and all they end up with is an advert before the video to help pay the streaming cost…which is generally stripped by an ad blocker anyway. They had the comment system, which was one way to get some engagement, but that had long ago gone septic…long before they broke it completely themselves.
The “Safe Harbor” part of the DMCA, the provision that gives legal cover (in the US) for things like this site, YouTube, et al requires that reasonable precautions be taken to prevent copyright infringement.
So if Twitch didn’t have something like Content-ID they were open to a massive lawsuit should users start posting popular music instead of voice in numbers large enough to notice.
You don’t have to like Content-ID but it is there for more than simple capitulation… at least here in the US…
Not exactly. DMCA section 512 states the company must remove any content they know is infringing and they must provide an agent that other entities can send DMCA takedown notices to, but it does not actually say that the company must actively police its content, you are only required to react to notices sent to you.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/faq#QID564
YouTube’s Content-ID – thing is more of an extension of this as YouTube/Google has made several licensing deals and contracts with various big publishers, giving them free-roam access to YouTube’s content for active policing and the power to take down content without invoking DMCA in the first place.
If I were a gamer I would be really pissed for this, because YouTube comments are toxic, and let alone thta, now they’ll need a G+ account.
Sucks, hopely there are alternatives.
Should fit right in with todays gamers then.
QFT! The most toxic environments I’ve ever seen have been made that way by gamers. Maybe with the exception of Westboro Baptists.
What games are you playing and with who?
It’s the FPS games and the 12 year old kids that are toxic, I only look t play with older players and avoid multiplayer FPS games like the plague they are to the gaming industry. Net result is a group of 20-40 year olds that can both play intelligently and not be douchebags.
Maybe sports video games make sense, given that they are a simulation of something else thats fun to watch. But most of the video games that my friends watch are things like WOW or League of legands. I don’t understand why that’s appealing.
Personally, I’ve always found watching other people play computer games enthralling. I’m not exactly sure why; I’m certain it’s not for the competitive aspect, although it’s always good to watch a skilled player.
I suspect a lot of it is to do with enjoying the astonishing worlds that game developers are able to create. Computer games demonstrate a unique mix of technical and artistic talent. It’s always interesting to try to understand how a particular effect has been created.
That’s my perspective anyway; I’m sure it’s very different for others.
I guess I just don’t understand a lot of internet videos, come to think of it. The “unboxing” videos also confuse the heck out of me. What the Funk. No artistic grandeur in those, I’m fairly certain.
Well, I’m with you there, not that my opinion has any credibility after my previous post!
If games and unboxing aren’t your thing, you must like videos of cats. You have to like one of the three or you’re not allowed on the net.
Welp, that’s it. Canceling my Internet right now.
Pretty much hate the cat videos, pictures and anything cat related.
I was on the internet before cat things, I’ll be dip danged if the cat loving masses shoo me off.
A game of unboxing Schrödingers cat?
I am an avid Starcraft watcher and I understand the game pretty well and it’s the same as watching regular sports – I feel entertained by the mastery of the players and their strategies, sometimes I root for one of them because of his playstyle or personality etc etc. I think it helps if you are or were a player and understand how skilled the pros really are compared to casual players like ourselves.
It’s like watching any sports game.
Some people like watching soccer, some people like watching chess.
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