[News] Twitch will soon start selling digital games

[machomuu]

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It's not all that uncommon that we will see what would have been surprising or odd sites or companies throwing their hats into the digital games retail ring. And thus, being as large and wide a name as it is, it should come as only half of a surprise that this is happening now. Announced for this Spring, Twitch plans to distribute games directly from streamers' pages, as you can see in the picture above.

What is most significant about this, however, is how the revenue is spread:

The way the breakdown of revenue works, is that publishers and developers will receive 70% of the revenue (which is in-line with other online stores), the streamer will receive 5% and Twitch will, presumably, collect the rest.

That means if a game (or in-game content) is sold directly by a publisher or developer's own Twitch channel, that means the revenue could be as high as 75%.

This is no doubt a win for streamers, as this is certainly a boon for their wallets. Developers make as much as they normally would from online distribution and Twitch rakes in the remaining dough. It very much does seem like, as Twitch's VP of Commerce puts it, a "Win-Win-Win" gahahah (watch Girlish Number folks), but one has to wonder how this will affect how AAA games will sell on things such as Steam, Amazon, or other third party distributors (though in the case of Amazon, considering their relationship with Twitch, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't affected at all). One might say that this wouldn't change anything since the other distributors have deals to keep their appeal high, but if there's so little detriment to the dev/pub and if deals would just increase sales, what's not to say that Twitch wouldn't be the forefront of big cuts and irresistible deals?

Are you surprised by this news? And how well do you think it will be utilized?

Source

 

[Juno]

It's all mentioned in the article, but my first thought was also "yeah, but can they beat the prices of other retailers" - it is definitely more convenient if you're watching a game you want to buy, and you can just click the button right there, but I imagine a lot of people are still going to scour the internet and watch the sales to look for the lowest price. At least I would - for people who want their AAA games right then right now, this could be useful, but I'm the kind of person who doesn't mind waiting a while if it means a lower price, and I'm always checking sales and bundles, so I doubt I'd be using this feature.

 

[Arsenic]

Steam has my gaming loyalty. The only thing I watch on Twitch is Monday Night Painting with Bob Ross anyways, so I don't think this feature will help too much.

I dont see this feature lasting long, as if your on twitch, you're either a console player, or already have Steam which will have a better price almost certainly.

 

[divitorobert]

an anyone agree that this is a good idea for people who haven't used Steam yet?