Online video technology provider Dailymotion is taking on Twitch, debuting its own platform designed specifically to live-stream video games. But Twitch appears to already be branching out, testing the movie-streaming waters and announcing new options for background music during live streams--including original, user-created music.
Dailymotion Games allows game streamers to create live streams and monitor them "through a dedicated control panel," according to a release. Streamers get a percentage of revenue from ads displayed during the stream.
Gameplay streams are a niche that was largely ignored by online video providers for some time, before Justin.tv, Twitch's original parent, discovered that live-streamed games took up the lion's share of video streaming on its innovative service. Twitch was snapped up by Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) last fall for $970 million, sparking a new drive by competitors to lure away its audience.
Adding a dedicated service for game streaming, or as Dailymotion and a few other companies dub it, "eSports," appears to be a sound strategy. The company notes that gaming content on Dailymotion garners 180 million-plus views and 11 million unique visitors worldwide each month.
"Dailymotion Games is entirely dedicated to eSports fans and streamers who come together every evening to form an amazingly talented and gregarious community," said Martin Rogard, chief operating officer, in a company release. "Over the coming months, we will significantly increase our investment in the eSport domain to ensure worldwide recognition of all our talented content producers."
Twitch, meanwhile, is experimenting with a couple of value-add services: streaming movies on demand, and adding music options for its live-streamers.
Working with Devolver Digital, a game publisher based in Austin, Texas, Twitch will stream a gamer-themed movie to its subscribers free of charge every Friday, through Feb. 20. The stream will include a live chat with the filmmakers of each movie as they're shown.
The service is also working to resolve its song copyrights problem, announcing that a library of 500 pre-cleared songs is now available for its streamers to use in their live and VOD gameplay videos. Further, it's beta testing Music Category, which musicians can access to create, perform and present original tunes. Twitch is working with Monstercat FM to test a radio-style music player for use during webcasts.
The new services don't mean Twitch is changing its focus, a blog post by its staffers noted. "We understand that this is new and may be a bit confusing given Twitch's long-standing 'gaming-only' stance. We view music as an expansion, but gaming will always be our core focus."
For more:
- see this Twitch blog post
- and this post
- Dailymotion has this release
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