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Recently, YouTube launched a few other apps, which are all geared towards getting you to watch more video on their website. There’s YouTube Music, YouTube Kids and YouTube Gaming. After Google lost out to Amazon on bidding for Twitch, Google went out and created their own game streaming network in YouTube Gaming. Which wasn’t hard to do really, where many users already do this, including PewDiePie – although he wasn’t always live. YouTube Gaming has been available in a few countries, including the US and the UK. Google actually has promised that it’ll launch in many more countries soon, as well.
Today, YouTube announced that YouTube Gaming is coming to four new countries. Those are Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. YouTube Gaming is now live in those countries across iOS, Android and the desktop. Speaking of those platforms, YouTube is rolling out some updates as well. On the Android side, we’re looking at a few tweaks being added. The Android app is also getting 60fps playback, DVR mode and the ability to switch between the quality of the stream. For the desktop, the homepage is getting a bit of a redesign. There are no more sidebars on the homepage. There’s also a “Live” tab now on the homepage. What this does is takes you to all the live streams right now. Of course, it only shows you the top streams and games that are live, and not absolutely everyone that’s live streaming right then.
YouTube, who is the largest video community on the web, is a great place to go and live stream gameplay. Many might wonder if anyone actually watches someone else play a game. Our answer to that is, you’d be surprised. With YouTube, gamers are able to monetize their streams by having ads enabled thanks to Adsense, another Google product. This way they can earn some cash while playing a game. On Twitch, they give users the ability to monetize through several methods, including selling their own branded t-shirts and apparel through their partnership with Teespring. So far, we haven’t seen much competition between Twitch and YouTube Gaming, but that may change very soon.