YouTube Gaming goes web-only from March, as Google kills standalone app
- by Nick Cohen
- in Industry
- — Sep 20, 2018
As it turns out, the features that were developed as part of YouTube Gaming aren't going away. Did you ever use the dedicated YouTube Gaming app?
The company detailed some of those coming changes in a recent blog post, noting that numerous features found in the standalone YouTube Gaming app are headed to the main YouTube, but that the app itself is being retired in March 2019. There's a carousel of top live games along with new and upcoming live streams from subscribed channels, as well as trending videos and recommended videos based on your subscriptions and history.
"In terms of overall YouTube consumption, Indian viewers are definitely mobile first, with 55 percent of overall watch time in India coming from mobile", said Ines Cha, Head of Gaming Content and Partnerships for YouTube Asia Pacific in conversation with Gadgets 360.
They explain how the new "destination" will work, as it will now personalize the content, and will show "top live games and the latest gaming videos from your subscriptions".
He even directly credits Twitch with some inspiration, saying, "Twitch does a really good job with game discoverability". According to Variety citing App Annie data, Twitch's Android app was the 15th most popular entertainment app on Google's Play Store while YouTube Gaming was at number 283. Don't be sad, though, as YouTube plans to focus its entire gaming effort into the regular YouTube app and web experience. You'd have some people that funneled through into the gaming app, or the gaming destination, but we were finding we still weren't touching many people daily. It didn't mean that the main YouTube app would not including gaming content but the new app would offer a lens for gaming content and customised interface for live streams.
Nonetheless, we wonder how popular YouTube Gaming actually is.
YouTube also promises to highlight up-and-coming game streamers and content creators on a weekly basis, starting this week in the United States and then rolling out to other countries in the coming months.