Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has reached a preliminary agreement deal to buy Twitch, a popular live videogame streaming company. The deal was first reported back in May 2014 and according to the latest reports, the $1 billion acquisition is now official.
If this deal came in action then, it would be a massive validation for the burgeoning company of watching other people playing games.
Nowadays, video game competitions have turned into a million dollar business which is big enough to sponsor big tournaments and arenas in Macau and California. Smartphones and latest gaming consoles capabilities of Live-streaming has opened a new stream of revenue generation.
All this together means that Twitch will be having its own moment even without Google’s interest. But when asked, officials of both Twitch & Google has declined to comment on the deal currently.
Twitch, founded in the year 2011 has recently reached a level where it’s having 50 million active users. More than eight million people log on to the site every single day, and about 1.1 million people post their videos to the website each month. This system was used by many famous people and repudiated companies. Aside of this, Google’s YouTube dominates online video world; Twitch has successfully created its own firm on the particular corner of the video market.
Google already knows that gaming related video content has generated huge amount on YouTube. In 2012, one of tech giant has participated in $35 million funding round for Machinima – an online entertainment network which was completely based on gaming-related content.
The deal for Twitch is just not only the part of capturing the big audience who watches other people playing video games but Twitch has technological chops that could appeal to Google. Twitch has worked very hard in last few years in order to lever and regulate the immense amount of traffic that site generated. The startup company is expanding their roster of Live-streamed events, which includes conventions & conferences such as New York and Chicago Comic Con and E3. And this could be quite useful for Google, which is already allowing to host live events on YouTube.
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