Activision Blizzard and Google have announced their “multi-year strategic relationship to power new player experiences.” This means Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, and Hearthstone and more games or events will be streamed on YouTube exclusively.
The announcement was made through a press release where each company expressed their point of view on the expanded relationship between them and what it means for the players around the world.
Delivering Great Entertainment to Fans Through a New Streaming Partner
Sunil Rayan, Head of Gaming, Google Cloud, stated that the expanded relationship between them and Activision Blizzard would “help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world.”
Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard’s Chief Information Officer Jacques Erasmus stated that “Google Cloud’s best-in-class infrastructure gives us the confidence to deliver great entertainment to our fans around the world.”
Call Of Duty League began this weekend on January 24 and already got 700,000 live viewers. Overwatch League’s 2020 season starts on February 8. YouTube will be the official broadcaster for these esports events, and each competition will be live-streamed on their YouTube channel.
Supporting Next-Generation Entertainment
CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports Pete Vlastelica added that this partnership would only be in the players’ favor:
“It’s our mission to deliver high-quality, competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube’s powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment.”
Twitch Loses to Google, Who’s Trying to Reach the Top as the Best Streaming Service
It seems Twitch faces yet another challenge with Blizzard moving away from them and heading into a multi-year partnership with Google. We can only wonder how much Google paid for exclusive rights to stream Overwatch League, considering Twitch paid $90 million for the first two seasons.
And let’s not forget Microsoft’s Mixer that stole popular streamers like Ninja and Shroud. Although Twitch is still the most important live streaming service, its market share went down by 6%, with the two streamers leaving for Mixers.
