News

Steam Prepares To Launch Their Own Twitch Competitor

It’s been going around the internet like wildfire that Valve recently registered the domain name Steam.tv. Given the similarity of this to Twitch’s website, it sparked a whole raft of speculation that Steam was about to launch it’s very own game streaming service. Things got even hotter when it appeared that the service may have launched in a low-key way.

In a report via CNET though, Valve has said that although such a platform did temporarily appear, it is apparently still very much in the test phase.

Accidental Early Release

While this was an accidental release (which Valve has now removed) it, of course, didn’t go by without someone nabbing a screenshot of the event. Overall, the appearance seems similar to that used when you are broadcasting a game for your friends on the site. It seems that Steam has simply evolved this to go into a public online domain.

Is This A Good Idea?

I think this could be a fantastic progression for Steam. Personally, I’m surprised that they’ve let Twitch have such a free reign for so long. Yes, you can also use YouTube to stream games, but both are a little complicated, particularly if you don’t take the whole thing very seriously and just want to do it for a little fun.

Steam already has the players and the platform in place. If it can simply be a case of pressing a button to turn streaming on, this could prove to be massively popular. I image Twitch might be a little nervous at this news.

As above though, they have not released this as of yet. What happened earlier today was merely a little blip on the radar. One which has quite possibly spoiled the big reveal. When this does happen though, expect to see me on there showcasing my Dead by Daylight skills!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!