Like fans watching sports, kids watch other people play video games. Like fans watching sports, it is often someone who might be a professional or at least a gifted amateur.

Logo for YouTube Gaming circa 2015

Like televised sports there is play by play and color commentary… typically provided by the person who is playing the game… which can be very interesting since you gain some insight into what they are doing, thinking or planning.

Google’s previously available gaming platform allowed desktop gamers to live stream their games, and allowed any users with a web browser to watch both pre-recorded and live gaming.

There are 100’s of games out there and the quality of the “game play” varies by title and by skill of the player. Last week I reported on how popular YouTuber TDM uses Minecraft to create videos that are really mini stories or mini movies; entertaining while showing off gaming prowess.

Ryan Wyatt (YouTube’s head of global gaming content, dateline Sept 17 Tokyo) announced support for creating live streamed games from mobile devices. With Mr. Wyatt’s announcement gamers looking to show off in real time (live streaming) can now do so from a mobile Android device (and soon IOS).

Photo of Ryan Wyatt

This comes on the heels of other mobile streaming announcements in the past few months including services like Blab, Periscope and Meerkat. The services are analogous other than one offers video from a camera whereas the offers video recorded from a device’s screen.

It will be interesting to see if companies and brands start to including live streaming games, including mobile gaming within their content strategy. It will also be interesting to see how the gaming competition between Twitch and YouTube plays out; Twitch wins or YouTube wins.

https://youtu.be/GrJczjVT0Xk

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