YouTube Gaming

Visit: YouTube Gaming

In a bid to take on Amazon’s Twitch, Google has announced YouTube Gaming, its upcoming app and website built around video games and video game culture. YouTube Gaming will feature videos, live streams and more, with a database of over 25,000 games to start.

Each game will have its own page or hub, containing the best videos and live streams about that title. From the below screenshot, it appears these hubs will be broken down into an about page for the game and a general explore tab, as well as tabs for current live streams, popular videos, let’s plays and reviews. Finally, it appears games will be presented alongside content from the developers, where available.

Users will be able to add games to their collection, as a sort of bookmark for quick access to new content. In addition, the platform will support smart search results, relating specifically to games.

In terms of live streaming, these streams will have a major place on the platform, and Google already has or will introduce new functionality to make the streaming process more user-friendly. This includes high frame rate streaming, DVR and more, as well as the removal of mandatory live event scheduling. In addition, users will receive a single link to share for all of their streams, so fans can easily access channels whenever they’re live.

YouTube Gaming will launch this summer, beginning in the U.S. and U.K.