It is 2020 and is the year when gaming is no more a hobby only. Gaming is now a career option and the are platforms like Twitch and YouTube where people live stream these games. But which is the best streaming platform? YouTube or Twitch?
Let’s see –
BASIC INFORMATION
YouTube
YouTube is currently the biggest video hosting website. In 2015 YouTube launched its premium gaming sector with the name YouTube Gaming. But since then things have changed a lot strategically. YouTube gradually merged the gaming platform under itself because it wanted to run everything under one roof. And this decision has yielded many good as well as bad results. Some of the best gaming youtubers like Daniel Middleton, Mark Fischbach, and many more prefer YouTube over other apps for streaming.
And it also started accepting exclusive deals to make the platform bigger. For example, back in January 2020, YouTube signed a multi-year deal with Activision Blizzard to take the eSports scenario to a whole new level. This yielded good results as in the Q2 of 2020, YouTube saw its watch hours increase by 39% taking the numbers to 1.5 billion. And the number of unique streaming channels increased by 22% making the streaming hours sum up to around 16 million.
Still, YouTube comes second on the basis of gaming.
Twitch
Twitch or Twitch.tv, formerly known as Justin.tv, is currently the throne holder in the gaming sector. In 2014, there was a war between Google and Amazon to acquire Twitch and since Google already had YouTube, Amazon acquired the rights. Twitch boasts of a big user base and the world’s biggest streamers like Ninja, Dr. Disrespect, Shroud, etc. rose to fame through this platform only.
Now coming to the numbers, Twitch had a big growth in the Q2 of 2020. It saw a total of 5 billion watch hours which is really, really impressive. Then there were 197 million steam hours and the growth of 9.9 million more unique streaming channels brought an increase of 63% than the previous quarter. This makes it the undisputed King of Gaming now!
NOTICEABLE FACTORS
- UI Interface
Twitch
The UI of Twitch is very plain and simple. All of the site browsing features are on the top left side. The following and subscribing option is in the regular place beneath the video bar and then the chat is on the side.
But Twitch lacks some basic things. You can’t pause or rewind the stream you are watching. So if you missed something you need to wait for the highlights or the recording to be uploaded. And the video quality can’t be controlled by the users. It depends on whatever the stranger has set.
YouTube
This is the phase where YouTube takes an advantage. YouTube focuses on displaying the streamer‘s main channel and hence the UI is a bit clustered but simple enough. And then YT offers the users to choose the stream quality as per their choice and has real world resolutions like 240p, 480p, 720p, etc. And you can very well pause the video and continue where you left off or you can easily rewind to the spot you want to start.
- Chat And Moderation
Twitch
Twitch offers a better chat moderation as compared to its counterpart. Moderation solely focuses on the viewers and grants them various incentives. When you subscribe to a channel, you get the exclusive emoji’s of the channel and you can showcase them on other streams as a badge of honor. And the moderation tools are good as well. Nightbot is the moderation tool present in Twitch chats and this makes the chat a better and clean place.
YouTube
YouTube lags a bit behind in the case of chats and moderation. You can subscribe to any channel but you will not be getting any loyalty badges or emoji though. For this feature, you need to separately but the streamer’s membership which will reward you with the badges.
Though Nightbot still is present on YouTube as well but the chat moderation is not that appealing what it seems on Twitch. So, extra points to Twitch here in chats and moderation!
- Audience
Twitch
If we go on the stats, Twitch has far more followers than YT in total. This has made Twitch the biggest streaming platform. And a streamer’s success depends upon his watching. Good Twitch streamers prefer to have multiple accounts to get every update and to spy on their competitors. As a result of such a big user base, you can easily see the watching shoot up very high, for example on live-streamed events like the International!
But Twitch does not have the clear feature of alerting its users when the streamers come to live. Though Email notifications are enabled, that does not make complete sense. And hence many viewers miss out on various streams. This is the main reason why big streamers like Ninja and Dr. Disrespect have shifted to YouTube recently.
YouTube
YouTube focuses on keeping its users happy and satisfied. Since the YT audience is a bit small, YT allows them every benefit. But the most important is that users are notified every time the streamers go live through the subscription feeds!
FINAL VERDICT
Both the platforms are good in their own ways but Twitch wins in numbers though. Now you decide which is better. Adios!