If you don’t want to play a game yourself, you can watch someone else show you how it’s done. David Crookes finds out how YouTube has tapped into the growing trend for live gaming streams
What is it?
YouTube Gaming (gaming.youtube.com) is a new spin-off from Google’s popular video service that’s aimed specifically at gamers. Available through your browser and via Android and iOS apps, it lets gamers produce live streams of their gameplay for other people to watch. YouTube says the site will “bring the gaming community closer together”, but it will also allow the company to better target the lucrative video-game audience with adverts.
What are people watching?
YouTube Gaming offers hundreds of thousands of recorded gaming clips and live streams. Viewers can watch individuals play live virtual football matches and mammoth ‘e-sport tournaments’, among other streams. There are also ‘speed runs’, in which players attempt to get from the start of the game to the end in the fastest possible time; reviews of the latest titles; and detailed walkthroughs that explain how to complete a game. It’s a varied bag, to be sure.
Does it look like the ‘standard’ YouTube site?
No, YouTube Gaming has been given a distinct look of its own with a black background and options running down the side: to the left are the games that are currently trending, along with the most popular titles; to the right are links to various channels, with a search facility across the top. The YouTube Gaming logo is depicted, rather arbitrarily, as a pixellated heart (see main image) with no mention of YouTube in sight.
How does it work?
Gamers who want to stream videos sign up to the Go Live service and download encoding software that lets them capture themselves playing a game; or, in the case of a tournament, everyone who is competing. Viewers can then search for specific streams or click through to featured games from the homepage to plunge straight into the action.
What sort of games can be viewed?
Although the emphasis appears to be on the most up-to-date blockbuster games including Call of Duty, FIFA and Until Dawn, there are videos spanning every gaming generation. Many titles have their own page and there are currently more than 25,000 of them, ranging from the 1984 vintage favourite Manic Miner and the various celebrated incarnations of Super Mario Bros, to the classic PlayStation game Ridge Racer and the rebooted Prince of Persia series. The games without official pages are listed in the search results. There’s certainly no shortage of things to watch.
What do the pages offer?
The pages are broken down into various categories depending on the content available. The page for Manic Miner, for example, lets you discover more about the game while letting you see the most popular videos of the game in action. Just click the Live tab to see users playing the game in real time.
Can viewers subscribe to channels?
Yes, game publishers and YouTube creators can set up channels just as on the main YouTube site, which viewers can subscribe to and get alerts for when a live stream begins. If you’re not sure what to watch, the service makes recommendations based on the channels, games and videos you like.
Am I able to comment on live streams?
Yes. To the right of a live stream, you’ll find a Chat tab, but be warned that the more popular streams attract random musings and muttering: some people comment on the games, others on the style of the presenter, while some are either abusive or get involved in their own little conversations. If you find this tiresome, you can always click the Details tab to find out more about the current stream or Suggested to see related videos.
What if I miss a live stream?
YouTube Gaming automatically converts live streams into a YouTube video so, if you miss a stream, you should be able to view it as a recorded video later.
What’s the quality like?
It’s excellent. YouTube Gaming uses HTML5 video, so the full-screen streams can be broadcast at 1080p resolution and at 60 frames per second. There is also a DVR feature that lets viewers pause and rewind up to four hours of a live video stream, and fast-forward to catch up with live broadcasts.
Are the broadcasts popular?
Live viewing figures for videos on YouTube Gaming can often be in single figures but a good number attract tens of thousands and more. As the service becomes established, we expect these figures to rise.
Who wants to watch other people playing games?
Live streaming has become a very popular form of entertainment, particularly among hardcore gamers in their teens to late 20s. Figures show the worldwide e-sports market is enjoyed by 134 million viewers, and more than half of the top 100 channels on YouTube are gaming-related, with viewings of games up 75 per cent on last year. In 2011, a video-streaming service called Twitch (www.twitch.tv) was set up to cater for gamers, which now has more than 100 million unique monthly viewers watching more than 1.5 million broadcasters.
So why didn’t YouTube just buy Twitch?
It tried. YouTube offered a rumoured $1bn (about £650m) for Twitch, but lost out to Amazon which paid $970m (about £635m) for it in September 2014. YouTube Gaming, which launched last month, hopes to entice Twitch users away from the service to its own site.
Will it kill off Twitch?
We’re sure YouTube Gaming would be delighted to see its rival disappear, but Twitch isn’t going down without a fight; it currently has 44 per cent of the streaming traffic in the United States. Twitch is reminding broadcasters who signed its monetisation contracts that they cannot use a rival service or upload clips of their streams to YouTube, but we may see some poaching between the two. There are some major gaming celebrities who attract big followings and make lots of money from their pursuits, so getting them on exclusive deals will help to make one service more attractive than the other.
Isn’t it all a bit geeky?
American TV host Jimmy Kimmel thinks so. On his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he poked fun at YouTube Gaming and aired a sketch that showed gamers watching other gamers watching players play. Kimmel’s joke was, inevitably, shared on YouTube where it incurred the wrath of gamers who said he was out of touch. Gamers derive a lot of pleasure and information from watching others play. Not only do they get to see top players displaying their skills, they can learn new strategies and tactics to get a feel for games they may want to buy, and discover how to beat difficult sections.