A mod of the SteamDB website has apparently come across an address for a Steam TV service, possibly related to Valve. Considering its web address we might be looking at the beginnings of a streaming service that would allow Steam users to be able to stream gameplay without using Twitch.
Twitch has a nearly unmatched monopoly over the video game streaming industry, with thousands of streamers and millions of viewers on the site at any one time. That, along with a robust and consistent service that allows people to upgrade themselves from casual streamers to Twitch partners to full-time streamers, along with being able to keep donations and a significant portion of bits, has led to the rise of the professional video game streamer as an industry.
Steam TV, though we have no idea of what it is at the moment, will have to catch up to years of nearly undisputed supremacy by Twitch in order to make its own mark on the streaming market. Even the giant closest to Twitch, YouTube, has had its YouTube gaming service be little more than a footnote, and more of a way for streamers who can’t make it on Twitch to be able to gain notoriety.
While it would be an interesting and much more streamlined way to be able to stream Steam games, a Steam TV service might still find itself rather limited; players might not want to load up Steam each time that they want to watch someone stream, and much like Xbox’s Mixer app, companies who make their own streaming services just can’t match Twitch for the variety of features and utility.
But either way, we’ll have to just wait and see what Steam TV actually turns out to be, whether it’s an attempt at a streaming service to match Twitch, or something else entirely.
