Tag Archives: Amazon

‘Watch Dogs 2’ Free DLC To Be Released By Twitch; Amazon To Give 20 Percent Discount On Game Pre-Orders

“Watch Dogs 2” hasn’t arrived yet, but a free in-game content will be given away by Amazon’s Twitch Prime. Twitch announced the free DLC that they will be pulling out this November and “Watch Dogs 2” is included.

The PC Gamer confirmed that Twitch Prime will be sending out free in-game Twitch hoodies for Marcus Holloway of the “Watch Dogs 2” video game. Players need to have an account on Twitch will have access to the exclusive purple hoodie jacket with a Twitch logo in front, which will be available at the release date as per the PC GamesN reported. Continue reading ‘Watch Dogs 2’ Free DLC To Be Released By Twitch; Amazon To Give 20 Percent Discount On Game Pre-Orders

Twitch Just Got Way Better with Help from Amazon

The next evolution of Twitch is finally here.

Ever since Twitch was first acquired by Amazon back in 2014 for $970 million, it was inevitable that the two websites would begin to merge features and build off of each other. We’ve seen that growth begin to take place with more stable servers and premium features present on Twitch, but this past weekend at TwitchCon, the yearly convention for — you guessed it — Twitch, the company announced a plethora of improvements and features coming to the website thanks to their partnership with Amazon. Continue reading Twitch Just Got Way Better with Help from Amazon

Twitch will soon announce its ‘first deep product integration’ with Amazon

The fruits of Amazon’s Twitch acquisition will be front-and-center later this month at TwitchCon.

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday morning in San Francisco and said that his live streaming company will make a “big announcement” related to Amazon at its conference in San Diego on Sept. 30.

Amazon paid $1 billion to acquire Twitch in 2014, swooping up a site lets people stream their video game sessions and attracts more than 100 million users and 1.7 million broadcasters per month. It’s described as the “ESPN of the video game industry” where viewers go to watch live footage of video games being played. The platform is now expanding beyond gaming into new verticals like arts and music.

Since then, Amazon has quietly grown its Amazon Game Studios team and recently acquired gaming content platform Curse. The company is also now streaming its original TV shows on Twitch. But it hasn’t released anything new that fully integrates Twitch’s platform — until now.

“I’m really excited to say that we figured out a really cool way to join them up,” Shear said of Amazon and Twitch. “I could not be more excited for us to finally launch our first really deep product integration with Amazon.”

Shear said that two years ago, he knew there would be huge value that could be unlocked by building products that bring together Amazon and Twitch, which was nearly acquired by Google before Amazon paid $1 billion to purchase the company.

“We had this huge population of some of the most dedicated gamers in the world, and Amazon is the center of shopping and increasingly all kinds of media and hardware,” he said. “We thought there had to be a way to connect these two things. It’s so obvious.”

Though Twitch is owned by Amazon and now gets to use products like Amazon Web Services, Shear said that his company is still run “very separately from the rest of Amazon.” He did note that he’s noticed how Amazon is run differently from any other tech giant.

“It feels like a collection of young, scrappy startups loosely held together,” he said. “It’s the idea of leaders who should be single-threaded and should be able to own their entire area.”

Asked about recent reports detailing Amazon’s move to acquire streaming rights for live sports content and whether Twitch is involved, Shear said he hadn’t even heard of that.

“One of the fascinating things working for Amazon is that it’s so big and is doing so much stuff, that this is the literally first time I’ve heard of Amazon buying those rights,” he said. “But I totally believe it and it makes total sense. I can totally see how that would fit in really well in a lot of the things Amazon is working on. But it’s news to me. It’s not my team.”

Shear addressed a number of other topics during the 20-minute chat, including how Twitch moderates its live streamers and comments from users, acquiring eSports teams, and the popularity of new verticals like social eating. He also talked about the growth of live streaming in general, noting how it’s become a “permanent part of the internet.”

“It’s not temporary and it’s not a live streaming bubble,” he said. “We’ve added live streaming to the vocabulary of the internet.”

Given that growth, should Twitch have waited a bit longer to be acquired by a company like Amazon? Shear isn’t second-guessing that decision.

“Amazon has been a spectacular home for Twitch,” he explained. “If we held out longer, could we have made more money? It could have been likely. The space is continuing to get hotter and is seeing growth. The problem is, there’s also this chance that everyone would go build their own and we may have been undercapitalized compared to the competition and we would have struggled and not had as good of an outcome.

“That’s one of those things where it’s easy to second guess your decision,” he continued. “But all I can do is look back at where we are today and say, well, it worked out really well for me, for the rest of the team, for our employees, and it’s working out well for Amazon. I feel really good about it. I think we made the right decision.”

Twitch Doesn’t Only Want to Play Games

Now that live video is mainstream, where does that leave the Amazon property?

Amazon was never supposed to buy Twitch. Two summers ago, as rumors swirled that the livestreaming video site was set to be acquired, tech bloggers declared that Google was the secret suitor. The pairing made sense – Google owns the world’s biggest video site, YouTube, and Twitch had quickly managed to become the largest livestreaming site in the U.S. by tapping into the burgeoning pastime of watching other people play video games. Continue reading Twitch Doesn’t Only Want to Play Games

Twitch Announces First Round of Exhibitors and Sponsors Attending TwitchCon 2016

Two-Time Grammy Award-Winning T-Pain to perform at TwitchCon: The Party

Twitch announced the first set of confirmed exhibitors and sponsors at TwitchCon 2016. Twitch also revealed that T-Pain, a hip hop legend and two-time Grammy winner, will be a special guest performer at TwitchCon:The Party. EDM superstar Darude and a yet-to-be-announced surprise A-List headliner will also be on the bill. Continue reading Twitch Announces First Round of Exhibitors and Sponsors Attending TwitchCon 2016