Twitch has enjoyed a swift and seemingly unshakeable rise since its start in 2011. It has already become an established presence in online streaming and gaming communities, yet that success hasn’t made it immune to the familiar toxicity problems that plague other aspects of gaming culture.
Women, LGBTQ folk, and people of color are often subjected to a deluge of discriminatory abuse via Twitch chat that is at best disgusting and at worst potentially life-threatening. While Twitch is working to find a solution, current practices aren’t proving effective.
Activity Sharing bolsters Twitch’s “Friends” social network.
Twitch’s social network-like Friends feature just got more useful if you want more company for streaming or broadcasting. A new feature called “Activity Sharing” will notify your entire Friends list if you’re doing something interesting so they can join in. Conversely, you can check your Friends list to see what others are doing and join in, as shown in the GIF below. Users can keep broadcasts or streams private, if they prefer, by un-ticking the “share my activity” box. Continue reading Invite all your Twitch friends to a stream or broadcast→
Being a Twitch Streamer may become a hot commodity, as Humble Bundle, the charity-driven gaming bundle service, wants to work with streamers to promote bundles.
Microsoft’s Xbox division has snapped up Beam Interactive. With the deal, Xbox is looking to one-up Twitch. Beam’s secret sauce is that instead of viewers simply engaging in a “watch-and-chat” experience (a la Twitch) they can participate in real time directly into a streamer’s gameplay and live broadcast. Continue reading Xbox Acquires Beam, Taking on Twitch→
It has been about six weeks since the last YouTube Gaming update rolled out, and it’s clear the developers have been keeping pretty busy on making changes. The latest update has quite a few improvements to be found throughout the app, not to mention at least one feature that might be considered pretty huge. Topping the list is a new live comment stream that overlays gameplay videos so you can see the action and watch the commentary at the same time. A few features have been moved to more convenient places, and a video history is now available. Finally, there’s a new easter egg, and it’s pretty awesome. Continue reading YouTube Gaming v1.5 adds chat overlay to full-screen videos, landscape orientation, watch history, a new easter egg, and more→