Steam Broadcasting Announced: Challenging Twitch’s Gaming Stream Dominance

With how popular watching other people play video games has become, Steam has decided to enter the market that YouTube and Twitch has dominated.

Steam announced on Tuesday that anybody can watch a friend play a video game by just clicking on “Watch Game” right below the game they’re playing. In moments, a stream of a friend playing any game will open. A player has nothing to do with the broadcast — it starts and ends when they start and stop playing the game. The only catch is players have to accept the Steam Client Beta in their account settings.

What are the options in broadcasting?

There are settings that players can set:

• Playing something new like Far Cry 4 and only want a select few to watch horrible gameplay? Set it to “Only friends that I invite.”
• Comfortable with the game? Set it to “Friends can request to watch my games.”
• Want to show off those awesome skills? Set it to “Friends can watch my games.”
• Need to let the world know that you are the best player in the world? Set it to “Anyone can watch my games.”

Streaming gameplay is a great idea and there’s a reason why it’s so popular. It provides easy access for players interested in a game to look at how it runs and if they want it, they’ll pick it up. Sometimes, players either don’t want to play or don’t have enough time to play a certain game. This provides a great alternative.

Because many gamers already use Steam, this could be a very successful venture against Twitch because it provides one less step for PC gamers. What are your thoughts on Steam’s new broadcasting feature?

Image credit: Deviant Art