Twitch TV Becoming a Part of the Google Family?

If the reports hold true, it seems that Twitch, the popular game broadcasting website, is next in line for Google’s world domination plans.

According to anonymous sources, Google (more specifically, their YouTube branch) is in negotiations with Twitch over a price to make this happen. That price? About $1 billion, at the time it was originally leaked. While that’s an insane amount of money for us average folk, Twitch has already become #1 in their class, despite still being relatively new. Considering their skyrocketing popularity, and the amount of money they make from subscription services and event hosting alone, it’s more than likely that their overall worth has surpassed that amount of money for some time now. Whether this becomes a done deal or not, I’d bet that the final offer will be much higher than the one we’ve heard about.

I must admit that I don’t imagine things going well for Twitch if this were to happen. YouTube already has a live broadcasting service of their own, that a majority of their audience (especially gamers) doesn’t really use or seem to care about. If they integrated YouTube’s recent policies into this site as well, such as the forced Google+ accounts just to be able to comment, or the trigger happy programs designed to “enforce” copyright laws, Twitch could easily turn into a mess and lose popularity just as fast as they gained it. Twitch’s partner program could just as well be affected by the new ownership in a bad way, as YouTube’s methods tend to be far less consistent. On the other hand, if they were to keep Twitch’s basic functionality the way it was, then it could definitely lead to some needed improvements in the video service itself.

Unfortunately, neither party has commented on the subject yet, surely in an effort to keep as much of the information out of the public eye as possible. Are you a bit more optimistic about the potential results than I am, or are you already setting up an account on a competing site just in case?

Jeremy Harrison has been into gaming and just about everything nerdy or out of the norm for as long as he can remember. He likes to keep an open mind about things, but also has a strangely high amount of fun getting into a rant or good debate. . . which is probably why he was recruited to this site in the first place. You can Email Jeremy or follow Jeremy on Twitter @NightmareAsylum or Facebook