Youtube wants to take on Twitch with gifted memberships and stream raids

Youtube has attempted to steal the massive Twitch audience for years now. It’s not that it needs those viewers – Google has the first and second largest platforms in the world right now, but Twitch has a different type of audience. Gamers, game developers, livestreamers in these spaces, and more all go to Twitch to build and interact with their community.

I’ll avoid talking about the untimely and gruesome demise of Youtube Gaming as it was relegated into the main Youtube service shortly after launch, losing all of its unique identity, branding, and features, but I will at least mention here that Google has been snatching up partnerships with some of Twitch’s largest personalities, and winning them over to Youtube for about a year or so now.

With that being said, Youtube’s tools have services content creators who make videos and upload them, not livestreamers. With livestreaming opening up to anyone with at least 50 subscribers on Android now, instead of the previous 1000 subscriber barrier to entry, the company has been massively revamping the video streaming service to be a livestreaming powerhouse that’s attractive to Twitch users.

Now, during the Youtube Gaming Innovation Series event, Neal Mohan, Youtube’s Chief Product Officer mentions there have been 90 million hours of livestream content produced on Youtube, 250 million gaming videos uploaded, and a staggering 800 billion gaming-related video views in just 2021 alone. Obviously, these numbers are likely spiked due to the pandemic, and everyone staying home and bumming out while they stay safe, but still, that’s impressive. You’d think it’s impressive enough to bring back the dedicated Youtube Gaming app, but I digress.

New and upcoming features for Youtube that were mentioned at the event include two very significant tools that Twitch has found great success with and that have gone on to shape its identity as a service – Gifted Memberships and Live Redirects.

As much as we’ve accomplished, we’re just getting started. We’ve heard from you all that you want better discoverability of live content, you want more ways to monetize, and you want to see improved chat features. We’re currently working on upcoming products and features to meet these demands and others–including Gifted Memberships, as well as Live Redirect for Gaming, which will let you seamlessly send your viewers directly to another livestream once yours ends.

Youtube Blog

This is huge! It means that Youtube livestreams will finally have that community feel to them like Twitch does. Having the ability to gift channel memberships to other users as a token of appreciation for their interactions means that users who can’t or haven’t considered investing in a streamer’s community can try out their perks at no cost to them before deciding to commit to it themselves!

Most importantly, the introduction of Live Redirects, for anyone not familiar, means that once a Youtuber ends a livestream, those viewers won’t simply be dropped off and out of the platform like they are today. Instead, they’ll be transferred over to another livestream of the host’s choosing so that they have something to do once the main stream ends. Furthermore, the stream they’re handed off to has an opportunity to build an audience with those viewers that they may not have had the capability of doing on their own due to low exposure.

As someone who loves Youtube more than the Amazon-owned Twitch, I’m ecstatic to see these features copied over to the main place where I watch videos. I’ve never really thought to watch livestreams for gaming on Youtube, but that’s probably because I’m busy watching gaming news recaps and development videos instead. However, if Google can find a way to entice game developers like me to invest in livestreaming their process there, and if they carve out a space for us all, then they will have a leg up on Twitch who has shoved indie devs into odd sub-categories for years where they can’t easily be found or feel at home.