Twitch, A Platform For Watching & Live Streaming Of Video Gaming Acquired By Youtube

Word has it that Twitch has agreed to a $1 billion buyout deal from Google. The other company that was in race to acquire Twitch was Microsoft but Twitch has chosen Google over Microsoft as it believes Google is the best bet and it will allow them to scale their operations as their growth has skyrocketed since inception in 2011.

What is Twitch?

Twitch is a platform for watching and live streaming a video game, which allows users to actually watch other players play a game live. Currently, Twitch has over one million unique users streaming their games live and over 45 million visitors per month.

What it means to Google?

Google and YouTube entered the Video Game Streaming domain by introducing an API at the 2013 Game Developer’s Conference held at San Francisco, California. It is very common today for industry giants to buy out Start-ups that are viewed as potential threats. This acquisition can be compared to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for $1 billion in 2012.

This acquisition will also be Google’s second investment in the gaming business, the first one being Machinima two years ago.

What people think about the deal..

Some good…

Some bad...

What I think

Apple bought Beats, AT & T bought DirecTV and Youtube continues the trend by its plan to buy Twitch. Youtube is only continuing the acquisition spree started by Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012. With a buyout deal worth $1 billion, Twitch has become one of the most successful Start-ups because it had raised $35 million just a few years ago.

The YouTube – Twitch marriage will give it access to the huge stash of cash that Google has and it can grow infinitely. If Twitch could maintain it’s growth path with Google just providing the technical and financial assistance, very few users will object to it.

But if Youtube implements policies like locking content down in different regions and enforcement of copyright claims, it would end up ruining its new acquisition, just like a few other tech giants that have acquired start-ups and ravaged them.