Twitch partners up with publishers to sell games

This morning, there was an announcement from Twitch that their service is going to start selling games directly, with several publishers joining the launch list, currently including but not limited to: Ubisoft, Telltale Games, Hi-Rez Studios, tinyBuild, Vlambeer, Trion Worlds, and Paradox Interactive. This means that their in-game content, as well as games, can be bought directly on Twitch starting this spring.

Shams Jorjani, VP Business Development at Paradox (whose impressive lineup including games such as Crusader Kings 2, Cities: Skylines, Hearts of Iron IV, Stellaris, and most recently, Tyranny is responsible for more than a million views monthly on the popular streaming platform) says that this is “a logical next step in the relationship between developers, fans and streamers”.

This move should not come as a surprise, since Twitch is owned by Amazon who have themselves been pushing into gaming, with the above mentioned Twitch acquisition, as well as their own free game engine, Lumberyard. Star Citizen is a notable game that recently switched to the Amazon’s game engine.

The Twitch blog announcement clearly states the logic behind this move: “Viewers have always used Twitch as a way to ‘demo’ games before they buy. Now we’ll be giving them a way to close the loop and buy a game or in-game items they’re interested in, when and where they discover it.”

How does it work in reality? Streamers who partner with Twitch will receive a 5% revenue share for the purchases made by viewers of their channel. There are some goodies for the viewers as well, including a digital Twitch Crate containing randomly generated rewards in the shape of badges or emotes.

If you have considered streaming content on Twitch, perhaps this might be a good time to start. These are exciting times we are living in.