Streaming is the future.
A week ago, Tyler "Ninja" Blevins made history when he united with Drake, Travis Scott, and Juju Smith-Schuster on the online streaming platform called Twitch. Ninja, who makes over $500,000 a year playing video games and streaming them live, was the most famous Halo player for years before taking over the hottest game on the market right now, Fortnite. Drizzy and Ninja broke the video game streaming record that night, attracting over 635,000 viewers to Twitch.
Amazon owner Jeff Bezos, who recently beat out Bill Gates for the richest man on the planet if Forbes, bought Twitch for $970 million in 2014. At the time, the move seemed like an enormous risk, but that's why Bezos is a billionaire. Risk taking. The industry is expanding, and now everyone wants to cash in on the multi-million dollar business. Facebook is looking to rake in some of that video game streaming revenue as well.
The social media site, which is in the hot seat after news of a data scandal hit the web this weekend, announced that they are developing a program kit to make PC games easier to stream on the site. The program utilizes Facebook Live's platform and will work with programs and companies that endorse pro-gamers.
According to The Verge, Facebook announced their latest endeavor yesterday during the first day of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. In 2016, Facebook allowed Blizzard games, such as Overwatch, to stream directly on its Live platform. In an attempt to carve out a piece of the lucrative market, Facebook is offering reward programs through developers and sponsors that will be exclusive to Facebook Live streamers.