Session Name: | Live Streaming Video: Social Power To Games |
Speaker(s): | Jonathan Simpson-Bint |
Company Name(s): | Twitch.TV |
Track / Format: | Design |
Overview: | This session will talk about how live streaming of games and the idea of watching games as a fun spectator sport is exploding right now. This talk will be about other non-sports that have followed similar trajectories in the public consciousness (X Games, poker), and how (together with the conditioning that YouTube is giving us all) these are not freakish blips on the cultural landscape, but actually messages from the future telling us how entertainment and our relationship to it is going to change. You'll see lots of examples that attempt to explain the why of some of this, and offer lots of data points that show how live streaming is an inexpensive way to build community and continuity in game franchises. You will see how to do it and what it does for games. There will be lots of data, ideas, and excitement. It will be practical but inspirational. Live broadcasting and viewing of games is big news right now. Twitch.tv is the world's #1 platform and community for the live streaming of games, and has grown over 500% in the last 12 months. In October, 23 million people watched nearly 6 billion minutes of game play on Twitch, with the biggest single stream getting over 800,000 concurrent viewers at once. Something really big and interesting is going on. At Twitch we're not geniuses, we're just in the right place with the right technology at the right time. |