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YouTube just recently took the tarp of a new service that they are working on called YouTube Gaming. As you can probably guess from the name the service is essentially YouTube except that it will focus entirely on gaming videos. The newly announced service will likely be free once released and feature more than 25,000 video game channels at launch. Sure, YouTube is a tad bit late to the game streaming service market, but the folks at YouTube seems to think that YouTube Gaming will be quite different from the competition.
When Ryan Wyatt, the head of global gaming content at YouTube was asked about people comparing YouTube Gaming to Twitch, his response was essentially that people should not be doing so. Wyatt had this to say to Business Insider, “I think it’s sensationalized because it’s a fun story to write, talking about YouTube vs. the only other significant gaming platform.” He also goes on to say that he does not look at the two services as comparable due to the broader range of content that YouTube Gaming will provide. Some of the unique content that YouTube Gaming will provide over Twitch are things such as game-themed cooking or game-themed animations according to Wyatt. For example, If a YouTuber were to upload a Halo related animation, it would then show up on the Halo gaming channel. Everything related to gaming will apparently be covered by YouTube Gaming, something that definitely will separate the service from other top contenders such as Twitch.
Speaking of game channels, let’s take a moment to discuss exactly what those are in YouTube Gaming. Just as you can discern what YouTube Gaming is from its title, you can also do that for game channels. They are individual channels for each game that YouTube Gaming will support. Like mentioned above, the service will launch with support for over 25,000 of these games. Each of these channels will contain all the content from YouTube pertaining to that specific game. So, the Zelda gaming channel will feature all content from YouTube pertaining to Zelda, and so on and so forth. YouTube launching a live-streaming service entirely dedicated to gaming is no doubt long overdue. The video giant has had the technology to launch such a service for a very long time, but the folks there obviously didn’t see the value in such a service until now. If you look at similar services such as Twitch you will immediately see the value in it just based off its popularity alone. Now, with a second huge competitor in the game, it will be interesting to see which one comes out on top.