<story><title>Twitch nabs exclusive streaming deal with Blizzard for e-sports events</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/twitch-nabs-exclusive-streaming-deal-with-blizzard-for-20-major-esports-events</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nawgszy</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s very important for Twitch to do this, and I think they need to do it more, to be honest. Let me tell you a story.&lt;p&gt;I am a big Counter-Strike: Global Offensive fan. I play a bit, but I vastly prefer to watch professional play. I got into the game a year ago or so, and that seemed to be a glorious time to spectate the game. Streams were virtually exclusively on Twitch, and every weekend it felt like there was a ($100k+ prize pool) tournament, and every week there were high quality pick-up&amp;#x2F;practice games between professional players being streamed.&lt;p&gt;Of course (who can blame them?), YouTube Gaming wanted a piece of this pie. They cut some exclusive deals with a couple online leagues and tournament organizer, bringing a sizable chunk of the content with them to YouTube Gaming.&lt;p&gt;However, the users DID NOT follow (and UX over on YT can be almost entirely blamed), and the ensuing fracturing of the community has seen CS:GO drop from consistently top 5 in Twitch games to regularly outside the top 10. The thing is, though, the missing viewership mostly didn&amp;#x27;t migrate to YouTube, instead just deciding to not watch at all. The appeal behind Twitch and CS:GO was that there was basically non-stop _very high_ quality content being streamed, and you didn&amp;#x27;t need to put in a single ounce of effort to find it. YouTube very much does not have that same user flow down, at all.&lt;p&gt;And now (even though the position isn&amp;#x27;t particularly degraded), owing to the relative difficulty of finding tournaments on YouTube OR Twitch, I find myself watching a lot less. So goes the general vibe of the community. Sure, woe is us, 2 whole sources? But consider this: YouTube&amp;#x27;s discoverability is horrible, its UI plagued with reruns emblazoned with a red &amp;quot;LIVE NOW&amp;quot; that screams for your attention at first and later leaves you unwilling to trust any visuals on the site; Twitch, on the other hand, with its inability to pause &amp;#x2F; rewind &amp;#x2F; stream a smooth 1080p60 (hell, even 720p60 stutters 10x as much as YouTube&amp;#x27;s) leaves you comparatively upset about video quality when you watch there.&lt;p&gt;So I guess my point is that Twitch clearly loses in the tech department to YouTube, but its benefits (more entertaining chat, better discoverability and UI&amp;#x2F;UX) are more than enough to make you a dedicated user when exclusivity is part of that package. It&amp;#x27;ll be interesting to see which side can overcome its issues to gain the advantage.&lt;p&gt;Note: edits for readability have occurred over the 5 minutes following the posting of this comment</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitch nabs exclusive streaming deal with Blizzard for e-sports events</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/twitch-nabs-exclusive-streaming-deal-with-blizzard-for-20-major-esports-events</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>niftich</author><text>In the past 12 months Blizzard has integrated Facebook login [1], Facebook Live streaming [2], and Facebook friend lists [3] into their revamped Blizzard App (previously known as the Battle.net Launcher). The live streaming functionality was particularly a shot across the bow [4][5] against someone like Twitch&amp;#x2F;Curse, so it&amp;#x27;s interesting to see that Amazon has now responded and forged this new deal with Blizzard. I&amp;#x27;m curious if it&amp;#x27;s just about the content (driving viewers to the platform) or if there&amp;#x27;s more in the works between these two.&lt;p&gt;Warning, slow links:
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;venturebeat.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;facebook-to-provide-login-and-live-video-for-blizzards-overwatch-game&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;venturebeat.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;facebook-to-provide-login...&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wowhead.com&amp;#x2F;news=255393&amp;#x2F;blizzard-and-facebook-streaming-and-login&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wowhead.com&amp;#x2F;news=255393&amp;#x2F;blizzard-and-facebook-str...&lt;/a&gt;
[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wowhead.com&amp;#x2F;news=260084&amp;#x2F;battle-net-and-facebook-friends-integration&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wowhead.com&amp;#x2F;news=260084&amp;#x2F;battle-net-and-facebook-f...&lt;/a&gt;
[4] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12371440&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12371440&lt;/a&gt;
[5] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12381447&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=12381447&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>