Amazon Buys Twitch.tv; Stream Drones in Development

Sterica · August 2014

Not Google, as rumored.

Over a billion dollars. Let that sink in for a bit.

...finished? So okay, it might seem weird for Amazon of all places to do this, but they got their own streaming service for videos, released their own tablet, and basically have done a lot to expand beyond just a simple place to buy cheap textbooks or replace a broken controller. Either way, Twitch.tv is probably a huge win for Amazon, as it has been making a lot of cash and is the hot streaming site out there. Shit, even Google is trying to play catch-up by slowing adding streaming options to YouTube. It is possible that Amazon could try to piggyback other streaming services off Twitch, which would be a weird inversion of what happened with Justin.tv if they pulled it off.

The downside? Those changes that happened to Twitch earlier this month. While the smoke has settled a bit, Twitch is probably at its least popular right now after it went on a muting spree and has effectively killed VODs in any long-term sense. It remains to be seen if Amazon may reverse some or all of these changes in order to alleviate any fears that Amazon is going to get all corporate boa constrictor on Twitch...or if these changes were done by Twitch to encourage Amazon to seal the deal.

So it turns out watching thousands of idiots fight over a game of Pokemon is big money. Draw your own conclusions about humanity.

Garthor · August 2014

Bobkins Flymo wrote: »

So it turns out watching thousands of idiots fight over a game of Pokemon is big money. Draw your own conclusions about humanity.

That's old hat. New hat is watching a fish play Pokemon.

Dehumanized · August 2014

copying my post from the VG Streams thread:

Dehumanized wrote:

i do not like this acquisition

i like it better than the total death knell that google buying twitch would have been

and i'm not sure how amazon will turn twitch to shit

and twitch has already been preemptively ruining itself in preparation for this buyout

but i remember what happened to comixology

edit: for reference, here's the blog post where amazon announced that they were going to ruin comixology. it took them a whole 3 weeks to do this after acquiring the service.

nusu · August 2014

Garthor wrote: »

Bobkins Flymo wrote: »

So it turns out watching thousands of idiots fight over a game of Pokemon is big money. Draw your own conclusions about humanity.

That's old hat. New hat is watching a fish play Pokemon Street Fighter 2.