Twitch and Imaqtpie: A Trendsetter in Video Game Streaming
Video game streaming has boomed as a lucrative industry, with companies like Amazon investing $1 billion to acquire Twitch and professional players like Michael “Imaqtpie” Santana leaving their professional careers to focus on streaming. The influx of money into this new industry is undeniable.
Shou.TV: Bringing the Spotlight to Mobile Games
While Twitch and Santana continue to shine with games like League of Legends, Shou.TV aims to put games like Angry Birds in the limelight. Despite constituting 70-80 percent of app store downloads, mobile games are conspicuously absent from streaming directories. Shou.TV wants to change that by offering high-quality 1080p streaming to mobile gamers, complete with facecam and player audio, just like conventional streams.
The Flexibility of Shou.TV
Shou.TV’s CEO and co-founder, Cedric Fung, believes that the key to reaching the mobile audience lies in the flexibility of their application. He points out that mobile gamers prefer playing games freely, whether it’s in bed or in the car, which is different from the PC gaming market.
Shou.TV’s Approach to Mobile Gaming
Shou.TV focuses on casual gamers to provide significant stream time, catering to an audience of 10-20 years old who predominantly play games on tablets and phones. Unlike expert gamers with high-end gaming equipment, Shou.TV’s audience may not even own desktop or laptop computers.
Shou.TV’s Strategy: Taking On the Competition
Shou.TV may be a young company, but it’s taking on the established streaming giant, Twitch. Twitch may not have a strong presence in the mobile space, but it has made progress by allowing users to stream to Twitch with the NVIDIA Shield tablet and broadcasting certain iOS games. However, these are exceptions rather than the norm, as mobile game developers have yet to fully embrace native broadcasting in their games.
The Battle for Mobile Esports
Shou.TV doesn’t intend to challenge Twitch in the esports market, at least for the next two years. The CEO, Fung, acknowledges that mobile esports still have some ground to cover. However, he remains optimistic about the growth potential of the mobile esports market in the next two or three years.
The Love for Mobile Gaming
Fung and the Shou.TV team are currently focused on providing enjoyable gaming experiences to their audience, whether the games are competitive or not. They hope that mobile gamers will be as enthusiastic about sharing their love for gaming as they are.
Illustration by Jason Reed