News - Amazon snaps up video-gaming streaming site Twitch

[HEXUS]

The online retail giant confirmed a final price of $970 million in cash.

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[KeyboardDemon]

Cash!!! I wonder how many briefcases full of $100 dollar bills they needed to do that?

[crossy]

Cash!!! I wonder how many briefcases full of $100 dollar bills they needed to do that?

Nah, they got 585,000 £1,000 Amazon gift cards emailed to them. LOL

However I'm still trying to see the big deal with this service. Sure, it's great for "bragging rights" or maybe tip sharing - but apart from that I can't see the appeal. In which case £585M is a heck of a lot of "loose change". Then again, I can't see any appeal - at all - in these "unboxing videos" that a lot of people seem to post. So maybe I'm just completely out of touch with the way things are done these days.

[Tpyo]

I'm still trying to see the big deal with this service. Sure, it's great for "bragging rights" or maybe tip sharing - but apart from that I can't see the appeal. In which case £585M is a heck of a lot of "loose change". Then again, I can't see any appeal - at all - in these "unboxing videos" that a lot of people seem to post. So maybe I'm just completely out of touch with the way things are done these days.

If I were to use it, that'd be it. The platform for the pro-gamers and those who want to watch them (either as e-sports fans or to just to improve their own play)is where the interest lies - primarily I guess it is the advertising that you can sell around all those viewers, but they must see more mileage than just that (in the platform itself) if they're willing to shell out that much for it.

[shaithis]

e-Sports. Lots of people speculating on it at the moment. Still a lot of muller.

[crossy]

If I were to use it, that'd be it. The platform for the pro-gamers and those who want to watch them (either as e-sports fans or to just to improve their own play)is where the interest lies - primarily I guess it is the advertising that you can sell around all those viewers, but they must see more mileage than just that (in the platform itself) if they're willing to shell out that much for it.

Fair enough - then again the whole "esports" malarky just leaves me cold - I prefer to actually game myself rather than watch someone else do it, even if I'm doing it really, really, really badly. Seen one or two of those tourney's on Ginx and it just looked like a lot of testosterone fuelled adolescents. I know ... I just don't "get" it.

[Bagnaj97]

Amazon getting into advertising, targetting based on your amazon viewing/purchase history?
Referral links (Like this game? Get it on Amazon now!)?

I can't think what else they'd want Twitch for.

[KeyboardDemon]

I'm still trying to see the big deal with this service. Sure, it's great for "bragging rights" or maybe tip sharing - but apart from that I can't see the appeal.

Up until about a week ago I thought it was simply a gamers themed version of Youtube, then last week I was using Biscuit's TeamSpeak server to talk to MadAussie while he was playing DayZ and he opened up a feed to the game so we could watch him on play. Watching this way is a whole lot more imersive than watching a Youtube video of some pre-recording gameplay, firstly there was interaction between myself and MadAussie so I could suggest actions for him to take and secondly I was able to get answers to questions that would take ages to get answers for if I asked them about a Youtube video, and lets face it, many questions on Youtube don't get answered and quite often a lot of people are ridiculed for asking them.

[Dottorrent]

At least it won't have Google's way of saying "That's copyrighted material you have there. That's a strike."

[Lorcaran]

Taking a video of diablo 3 and hyperlink to buy on Amazon, along with "sponsored" peripherals....