Steam Broadcasting Beta

[Strykstar]

Steam has announced the start of their Broadcasting Beta service, have you read up on it yet?
https://steamcommunity.com/updates/broadcasting

Are you guys going to use it? it seems like a lot of fun for watching friends play and to see some games that you are thinking about buying and still undecided.

 

[jurew2]

I agree with you, this functionality could be usefull. You could make up your mind for a game on your own, without checking some biased reviews or some useless gameplay footage.

 

[Squigly]

It could stand to be the next big competitor to twitch, but as it stands it seems that not too many people are watching it. The top on the list only has ~200 viewers, compared to over 1000 on most pro player/tournament twitch streams.

 

[Nate5]

I feel like it would definitely help drive up the sales of games. Twitch is a great website, but I feel like a lot of the audience is taken by famous streamers, not to mention that less popular games are not really on the radar there. This can let you see how your friends play the game, and can help you make your own educated decision whether the developer deserves your audience or not

 

[Strykstar]

This also opens some possibilities to play some games with your friends where only one person is controlling, like an adventure game for example.
You can simply be seeing your friend's screen and talking with him through Vent or Mumble and you can make the decisions together.

 

[Robbinho14]

Hmm, so is this more like a try to grab away twitch.tv's monopoly on the gaming stream market or just like they stated it to spectate friends?

 

[Jafool]

I think this is a cool feature and I can understand why they're doing it... 100%. However I do not think it's going to be successful at all. Twitch is already too established. I like that they're giving it a go though.

 

[Mika]

It seems interesting; but I doubt I'll go to it. I don't care for watching other people play games unless they are beside me. Even then I only watch for a couple minutes before getting bored. The interface looks gorgeous though.

However I do not think it's going to be successful at all. Twitch is already too established. I like that they're giving it a go though.

I agree. Almost everyone uses Twitch. I could see Steam taking quite a few members from the people who bought their games through Steam though.

 

[cyberpinoy]

I will not partake in the broadcasting service as mentioned here. I do like watching my friends play the games i play and right now the only thing I care about that Steam has is DotA. and since I spend more time playing it than watching it the broadcast would most likely not be suitable for a player like me.

 

[Divbyxero]

I actually think I would use it. I do use Twitch, infrequently, but my attention has been received. I think it would be cool to watch my friends play games that I do not have, just because I know them. Twitch streamers on the other hand are strangers, so the emotional connection is not there. Definitely waiting for it to happen!

 

[Azrile]

It could stand to be the next big competitor to twitch, but as it stands it seems that not too many people are watching it. The top on the list only has ~200 viewers, compared to over 1000 on most pro player/tournament twitch streams.

Well, the Steam one is very new, and Twitch is very easy to cheat the numbers. In Twitch, it is more about creating more bots than the other people are creating bots so that you rank higher.. it is like a meta-game deciding which programs will work to get you higher view counts without getting busted.

 

[Azrile]

Hmm, so is this more like a try to grab away twitch.tv's monopoly on the gaming stream market or just like they stated it to spectate friends?

My guess they are trying to steal some from Twitch, but using the assets they have ( already established social networks) as a way to do it. Don´t be surprised if Facebook doesn´t try to do something to integreate this also. There were a lot of big articles last year talking about how much money there is to be made in live-streaming games.