Let’s see how it plays.
TWITCH ANNOUNCES NEW FEATURES, INCL. “KITCHEN SINK”, “NINE YARDS”
At TwitchCon this past weekend, Amazon and Twitch launched their big play to beat YouTube at its own game.
Here’s a quick overview of the details —
Twitch Prime. Rolled in with Amazon Prime (available for $79/yr in Canada, last I checked), you’ll get an ad-free experience, a free subscription to one channel per month, exclusive emotes and badges, and loot like free indie games and temporary (?) exclusivity on new Hearthstone heroes. While Twitch is pitching us on an ad-free experience, I think the free subscription is going to have a big impact — we’re going to see a lot more money going to a lot more content creators, very soon.
Uploaded videos. Out of all of the announcements, this is the real game-changer, I think. In a direct shot across YouTube’s bow, Twitch is launching an open beta on uploading edited videos to your account. They’re pitching it for highlight reels, LPs, and scheduled “streams” while you’re on vacation, but what I’m hearing is, I can put AYB’s talk shows and hardware reviews up alongside our streamers and tournament broadcasts, and they stay there. Look for us to take big advantage of this in the coming weeks and months.
Clips on mobile, and editing clips. What it says on the tin. Having more than once watched our own Twitch streams on my phone — and also having recently picked up a Chromecast! — I can appreciate this option.
Additional transcoding options. The short version here is, more ways to make more videos look more better for more people.
Cosmetic things. This includes loyalty subscription badges and cross-pollination with Curse on emotes, skins, et cetera.
Holy, eh?
I don’t think Twitch is going to take too big of a crown from YouTube, but if these features all pan out, they will be the undisputed king of video games on the Internet within a year or two. The Twitch integration on PS4 and Xbox One is already pushing a whole generation of gamers in the direction of the service — this will no doubt lock them in.
On top of that, I’m glad to see they’re not killing off Twitch Turbo — Twitch Prime is only available in select countries (The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Spain), so if you’re outside of those countries or just don’t want to hook your details up to Amazon, Turbo’s still there for you.
All in all, it’s a bold move, Tw– wait, I used this in the headline. Shit.
WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND TOLD YOU SO, DIGITAL HOMICIDE EDITION
According to updates from TechRaptor and others, troubled indie studio Digital Homicide has dropped the lawsuit it filed against 100 Steam users.
Studio head James Romine is claiming that Digital Homicide was “destroyed completely financially” once Steam removed their games from its service, removing the Slaughtering Grounds developer’s ability to continue with the lawsuit.
The state of Arizona has allowed the suit to be dismissed without prejudice. This means that while the suit is currently not a thing that exists, Romine and Digital Homicide can file the suit again in the future safely — although, admittedly, I fail to see how it would be any smarter to do so then, unless Romine wins a lottery.
(For those of you following Romine and Digital Homicide’s suit against Jim Sterling, there’s no update at the moment.)
Repeat after me, folks: freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences.
If you’re curious, here are the public documents from the suit, titled “Romine v. Unknown Party et al”.
WE HAVE SOME NEW FRIENDS, AND THEY’D LIKE TO GUIDE YOU
A big welcome to the Player’s Guide podcast!
Jackson and Daniel have been going strong for three years, talking about everything from video games to movies to books to soundtracks to executions of different tropes and ideas in fiction to Magic to Mario to the clever use of alliterations in their intros.
Yours truly has appeared on the Player’s Guide to discuss Magic’s Commander format (no I’m not linking it (I’m not that desperate for attention (okay yes I am that desperate (I do a ghatdamn column on the Internet, ferchrissakes (who reads text? (still not linking it (#pride (#professionalism)))))))), so I’m tremendously glad to be welcoming them here to AYBOnline.
New episodes of the Player’s Guide will be posted to both AYBOnline and their website, so stay tuned — and for a good introduction to who they are, go check out their latest episode!
FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS UPDATE — STILL PLAYING
Haven’t found a reason to bitch yet.
Wait — Cecil hasn’t dropped from a rare summons. DELETE UNINSTALL
Jesse Mackenzie is the Managing Esper for AYBOnline.com. When you summon him, he chomps a cigar and throws pictures of Spider-Man at your enemies. He can be reached at jessem@aybonline.com, and his opinions are his own.
