The first social media for gamers

 

When Justin.tv was launched, the website had several content categories. The gaming one quickly became the most popular. It is why Twitch.tv has been launched, to gather the gaming content and ease the viewer’s travel to the website.

After the shutdown of its direct competitor Own3d.tv in 2013, Twitch became the most popular streaming website for esports event. Some competitors, such as Youtube and Dailymotion, tried to increase the prominence of their gaming content, but it did not really impact Twitch’s audience. It leads some to say that the platform has a monopoly on the market.

The service which allows Twitch to stay at the top spot is streaming loads of esports competitions. The website is developing partnerships with publishers to keep the esports franchises. There are many video games with professional competitions, the most famous ones are League of Legends, Counterstrike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Fortnite, Hearthstone and so on. Some of them are gathering thousands of people in stadiums and millions of viewers at the same time on Twitch. It works the same for traditional sports during FIFA World Cup and the TV broadcasting. Here is a picture of a stage during the League of Legends’ World Championship in 2018.

Some big franchise marketing strategy are also using Twitch to promote their new games. The last and most famous example is Valorant and the drop of beta keys. In April 2020, Riot Games launched his new game and the only way to access the beta was to watch streamers playing Valorant on Twitch. Once a Riot and a Twitch account were linked, you could receive a key at any time of watching. This strategy allowed both streamers to have loads of viewers to develop sponsorship and Riot Games to promote their new game.