Valve's game distribution hub Steam is already the de facto face
of PC gaming, but now it's taken another step
towards becoming the dominating force in the field with the
addition of a built-in livestream feature.
Called Steam
Broadcasting, it allows you to watch the gaming sessions of
anyone in your friends list. When you see they're online and
playing, a new "Watch Game" button will be found next to their
names, or in the drop down from the friends panel. Hit it, and a
new window loads to display their in-game antics, along with a chat
pane.
At present, the feature is part of the Steam client's beta
program. Anyone can opt into this though -- click Steam, settings,
then select "Steam beta update" under account -- and the service is
free. If you're already using the beta and don't fancy letting
anyone voyeuristically observe your games (or if you just suck) you
can switch off the function under the new "Broadcasting" option, or
set restrictions on who can watch and in what
quality.
At the moment, the feature is accessible only on Windows 7 and 8
machines, though Valve are intending to push it to Linux and Mac users. You also
can't record your sessions, at least not directly through the
client. We're sure some enterprising coders will come up with a
solution for that in about five minutes
though.
Amazon paid $970m (£585m) to buy Twitch in August of this year, a near-billion
dollar example of why game streaming is a big business that Valve
likely wants a cut of. Twitch has a near-total monopoly on players'
livestreams, and while Steam Broadcasting is in its infancy, having
the feature built right into the client gamers are already using to
manage and access their libraries could be hugely disrupting to the
sector.
Source Article from http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-12/03/steam-takes-on-twitch http://cdni.wired.co.uk/620x413/s_v/steamsoft.jpg
Steam takes on Twitch with built-in game streaming
No comments:
Post a Comment