Seems like Youtube Gaming is gearing up to keep up with Twitch!
Twitch remains to dominate as the world’s leading online streaming platform, favored by gamers and viewers across the globe.
To keep up with the competition, Youtube Gaming has plans to step up their game.
Ryan ‘Fwiz’ Wyatt, the head of YouTube Gaming, hinted upcoming updates to the live streaming platform on Twitter. And some of these updates reflect features that are currently synonymous with Twitch.
As per the head of YouTube Gaming, the platform will indeed implement a couple of Twitch’s most popular features soon.
He posted a promotional image for the Overwatch’s League’s opening weekend in a tweet, which is now to be exclusively streamed on Youtube (along with Call of Duty).
One fan asked about in-game rewards for watching, which Fwiz replied to:
“We are working on that, and it’s absolutely something we want to do for all the OWL fans. Stay tuned for more news on that front.”
It’s confirmed that the Youtube team has plans about it, which is something they want to implement on the platform for OWL fans.
There’s yet to be a timetable for when fans can expect it, and also gave no hint whether the Call of Duty League would get similar treatment.
In case you missed it, seasons 1 and 2 of the Overwatch League (which was then streamed on Twitch) rewarded the players with earned tokens by watching the matches. They can get the rewards as long as they linked their Blizzard account to Twitch.
These tokens could be used to purchase various League team hero skins in-game.
Fortunately, the free tokens might return when OWL switches over to Youtube. Fwiz further teased that the viewership rewards may not be the only feature and rewards coming over from Twitch.
Attaching a reaction gif of professional NBA star LeBron James struggling to hold back a smile, fans speculate it may be a subtle indication that “clips” could make an appearance on Youtube Gaming too.
The “clips” feature is one of the biggest perks of the Twitch platforms.
Shareable clips help streamers get more views on their channel outside of their usual streaming schedule.
Highlights of their streams may also lure in interested viewers to check out the rest of their content.
Rival platform Mixer recently added clips, and just recently, they also enabled their viewers to generate clips themselves.
Streaming aside, Youtube Gaming has eyes on establishing their presence in the competitive esports scene.
They have successfully signed big Twitch names such as CouRage, Valkyrae, and LazarBeam to stream exclusively on Youtube, but the battle for more talent only continues by the day.
However, they have laid down their cards in an attempt to take a portion of the professional esports viewership early this year.
Before CDL kicked off this year, Blizzard and YouTube announced a partnership that would set the professional Call of Duty and Overwatch league to stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming.
The CDL Launch Weekend peaked at over 80k viewers on YouTube, particularly during the Hunstmen-Empire opener.
Then again, the addition of both viewership in-game rewards and the “clips” feature could improve and boost YouTube’s appeal versus Twitch.
