Google has announced it will be opening a brand new YouTube service dedicated to gaming.
The main YouTube is already heavily populated with hundreds of thousands of computer game related clips and channels specialising in walk-throughs, tips, reviews, music videos and some pretty impressive speed-runs with featured games spanning the decades and crossing platforms from NES to PS4 and PC. Retro titles and modern greats all make an appearance somewhere, so if you can think of a favourite game from yesteryear someone on YouTube is probably playing it or talking about it.
YouTube Gaming will cater to all of them and include its own search criteria. Google explains that with specifically tailored searching typing ‘call’ will bring up ‘Call of Duty’ rather than ‘Call Me Maybe’ and more than 25,000 games will have their own page. Gamers will be able to subscribe to channels just like on YouTube prime and can receive notifications whenever a new video is uploaded to a favourite channel.
As we mentioned above, YouTube already has a vast library of gaming content which dwarfs Twitch.tv (which is owned by Amazon) and we imagine current accounts and subscriptions will somehow be shifted across to YouTube Gaming and continue to run on ‘regular’ YouTube.
There’s also questions about the fair use policies for sharing game footage online which a handful of developers and publishers have enforced restrictions on (Nintendo’s “partnership program” for example). Will there be more freedom for uploaders on YouTube Gaming?
YouTube Gaming will be available as an app and as a website when it goes live for the UK and USA at some point this summer. All the questions should be answered before then and Google is giving a sample of its new video platform to visitors at the E3 event in Los Angeles this week.