Google’s $1 bn Aquisition of Twitch Said to be Confirmed

Most gamers have dreamt about it – wouldn’t it be great to be paid to play video games all day in my room? In this day and age, that is quite a logical possibility – all you need to do is stream it to others at the same time.

Twitch.tv is the current common vehicle for such people to broadcast their games, tournaments or practise out to the world – with their main competition, own3D.tv being shut down recently after quite a stint of drama.

There have been many jokes made online about Google’s apparent upcoming world domination with them reportedly accounting for 40% of the whole internet, this claimed acquisition may be bringing them one step closer to controlling our feeble minds.

As reported today on Venturebeat, their ‘sources’ have confirmed the take-over although no official statements have been found from either of the concerning parties.

“We don’t know everything about this deal, such as when it will be announced and the exact purchase price. We do know that Twitch investors who participated in past rounds are pleased that they will be getting significant returns that are multiple times the amount they originally invested.” Venturebeat

This deal is no big surprise to us, given how much Twitch has grown over the past few years. Since distancing itself from its parent, Justin.tv, Twitch has been the mainstay for all large streaming personalities and tournaments throughout the world.

For example, Twitch recently was the official streaming partner (alongside ESPN) for Valves latest International Dota 2 tournament boasting a massive prize pool of over $10m USD, more than that of some world-class sporting events. Unfortunately, the International 4 (2014) viewership hasn’t been yet released to the public, but from reports, the Twitch streams were garnishing over 250k concurrent viewers throughout the group stages.

Interested in some more mind-blowing stats?

“Twitch has more than 50 million monthly active users and more than 1.1 million members who broadcast videos each month. Back in June 2011, Twitch had just 3.2 million monthly active users. Twitch also distributes shows from partners including CBS Interactive’s GameSpot, Joystiq, and Destructoid, all gaming-news sites. More than 13 billion minutes of video are watched per month on Twitch.” Venturebeat

Where are we going with this? Gaming is getting massive. Huge! It only makes sense for Google to get on board now as we believe gaming is on the tipping point of exploding into the ‘mainstream’.

Google and Twitch are currently silent on the matter, but they’re booked to be speaking at the GamersBeat 2014 event coming this September – here’s hoping for more information.

Stay tuned for more Twitch and Google partnership news in the near future on eTeknix.

Cover image courtesy of TERA Today

Inset image courtesy of Uloop