Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: facebook, games, HRL, Twitch

Facebook Intends to Take on Twitch as a Game Streaming Platform

Published Sat, 27 Jan 2018 16:20:10 -0600

This one should be a pretty interesting fight to watch from the sidelines — or stream, as the case may be. Facebook has announced that they are prepping a streaming program for gaming broadcasts. This will put them squarely as a competitor for Twitch and Youtube Gaming.

Detailed in a blog post, the Gaming Creators pilot program plans to leverage Facebook's existing technology with a lot of what its competitors already do. Of special note is that Facebook wants to use the Oculus as one of its streaming platforms, suggesting using VR for gaming streams which should be kind of cool to see.

In terms of monetization, Facebook is exploring their options, but are already committing to a "viable path" for people to give money to streamers. The blog post reads:

"To that end, many gaming creators monetize their videos directly from the support of their passionate fans, and we're actively exploring ways for fans to back their favorite gaming creators via payments during select livestreams on Facebook.com. Based on the results of our initial tests, we'll expand our fan support monetization initiatives to more gaming creators, including participants in our initial pilot program."

Facebook plans to bring their first major showing of their gaming streaming program to PAX East in April.

While Facebook's attempts at gaming so far haven't been the greatest, they are home to one of the most adorable games I've played in a long damn time, Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Porg Invasion. Final Fantasy Brave Exvius Tap isn't too shabby either. And in terms of making gaming and games streaming more mainstream, well, you can't get more mainstream than Facebook.

However, Twitch is a giant when it comes to streaming, and not even Microsoft has been able to put a dent in Twitch's numbers with their own platform Mixer.

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