With Amazon’s financial backing, e-sports website Twitch is looking to dominate the booming industry with its acquisition of GoodGame, the largest e-sports agency, to monetise Twitch.
The e-sports broadcasting site has established itself as the go-to place for gamers who love to watch their favourite online players play online, similar to the way someone watches a game of football on TV.
E-sports has become one of the internet’s fastest-growing sectors.
In tournaments, video-game players can win as much as US$10m, as was seen during one particular tournament last July when sports broadcaster ESPN covered the event, netting 20m viewers.
Now, Twitch, which Amazon acquired last August for nearly US$1bn, is taking the next step in creating a lucrative monetising system with GoodGame’s e-sports agency both for Twitch itself and its content creators.
According to Twitch’s official announcement, the acquisition will make advertising on the site more efficient and better optimised for user viewing, or as Twitch puts it, will provide “an arsenal of fresh, non-traditional engagement methods uniquely suited to the ever-evolving digital media audience”.
Until now, Twitch, while putting itself in competition with YouTube in terms of viewer numbers, has struggled to establish a monetisation system as effectively as its Google rival and this move could potentially offer parity.
Speaking of what it means for GoodGame, its CEO Alexander Garfield said, “We view GoodGame as a conduit.
“Its purpose is to help support as many players and broadcasters as possible by channelling revenue into our community, and making sure it stays here. We wouldn’t have made it to where we are today without Twitch and its users – we’re excited to give back.”
