Gaming is getting bigger. Video-game walkthroughs and ‘Let’s Plays’ are slowly taking over as the most popular type of online video content, with YouTube gamers like PewDiePie and others having millions of people who’ve subscribed to them, waiting for videos of them playing video-games. We now have a neat ratio of uploaded videos and live streaming footage of people playing video games, and two platforms rule the Gaming Live-Stream: Twitch.tv and YouTube Gaming.
Twitch.tv
Twitch.tv is a live streaming platform which was started in 2011. It now focuses on gaming and video-game related content. With 45 million viewers, the website is one of the most viewed in the world. It features content which is neatly categorised according to the Video Game Title or other category. The website has a neat design, with a chat panel alongside the actual live-stream playing. The website allows the live-stream to be played in various qualities, ranging to low quality video to ultra high definition resolution videos. It was acquired by Amazon in 2014.
Twitch also has a Partnership system, just like YouTube’s. With this partnership program, the content providers can share a part of the advertisement revenue that their content brings in. Twitch can be accessed from the various gaming platforms ranging from Android and iOS to the home consoles like Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and Twitch comes integrated in some video-games to allow direct streaming in-game.
YouTube Gaming
The dedicated YouTube Gaming site is like an intersection of the two features that the standard big-boy YouTube already has: Video-game videos and Live streaming. The dedicated site for gamers focuses on gaming, and was brought out as a competition to Twitch.tv. YouTube Gaming is kinda new -- the site was launched in August, 2015.
The site feels like the good old YouTube, and it presents filtered game-only content to the user. The same content can be viewed on the standard site also. YouTube Gaming also features special gaming live-streams, and the interface is similar to that of Twitch’s. There is a side panel for chat, and the live-stream can be viewed in various qualities, like the standard site. The dedicated site’s design is less cluttered than the standard YouTube, and the interface is better focused on showing the content you want.
Which is better?
Well, comparison between these two platforms seems to be inconsistent. Both the sites are very active, and they’ll be updated with new features and improvements regularly. While YouTube Gaming brings out the best of YouTube Gaming, Twitch is a site which is built for exactly that -- the best of gaming. Twitch does a good job at bringing categorised content, while YouTube Gaming shows only gaming content, and though it’s filter does a good job at picking only the videos that have video-game content, occasionally a video or two may pop up that have similar search terms but more off-game content.
Generally speaking, YouTube has a bigger backup as it has better localization, and the web implementation of YouTube Gaming works better than Twitch on low bandwidth internet, but Twitch has been the most popular live-streaming site for gamers for quite some time, and the newer YouTube Gaming is YouTube’s move to overtake Twitch.
After all, all that matters is the actual content itself, and not the platforms used to bring them to you. Both Twitch and YouTube Gaming provide equal amounts of video game content, and if Twitch is better at live-streaming, then YouTube is better at the uploaded videos.
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