Video gaming as a spectator sport
According to Variety, Google is in talks to buy Twitch, a live video game streaming service, for close to $1 billion.
According to the tech news site Re/code, “When Twitch started up in June 2011, it claimed five million users a month. In 2012, it was up to 20 million. By the end of last year, that number had jumped to 45 million. Broadband service provider Sandvine says Twitch now accounts for 1.35 percent of Internet traffic during peak hours in North America. That’s more than HBO Go’s 1.24 percent.”
But how much can streaming video game play actually be worth?
“Streaming is essentially broadcasting yourself and your gameplay online in the gaming world,” says former professional gamer Mike Rufail. “We have what is a growing sport, and there’s a lot of interaction between the person who is streaming and the viewer.”
Here’s a live stream here:
“Google would be interested in this from a pure investment standpoint,” says Rufail. “It’s grown to a point now where the advertising revenue generated from these online broadcasts rival major television networks and surpass many of them as well. So I think, a lot of people, are cutting off their televisions and taking in the things on the web.”
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