Facebook is throwing their hat in the game streaming ring and hoping to compete against established video streaming services like Twitch and YouTube. In case you’ve been living in a cave the last few years, game streaming is a unique medium where viewers watch people play games. It has become big business for streaming services, but also for gamers, some of whom use it as their only source of income. Facebook is going to offer creators a way to handle their streams, marketing, and monetization all through the popular social media platform that many already use to keep in touch with their audience.
According to the press release, the Creator Pilot Program is focused on a few key things:
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Helping gaming creators build more meaningful and more engaged communities on Facebook than anywhere else
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Increasing discovery and distribution across multiple surfaces, including Facebook.com, Instagram and Oculus
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Supporting gaming creators with the types of tools they need to make a living streaming games on Facebook
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Building a platform where creators at every level have the opportunity to thrive
The social media giant promises to work with creators and streamers to build features to help the community grow and creators to thrive. One of the earliest features announced is the ability to stream in 1080p at 60fps. Allowing viewers to tip streamers a minimum of 3 dollars while they are streaming is also a key feature with this roll-out.
Sign-up is very easy and there doesn’t seem to be any requirement for established follower count to create an account. I signed up in just a couple of minutes and easily found the streaming page from their Creator page linked above but I have yet to find any link from my own Facebook page. One can hope that will be coming soon. The other drawback that I notice is the stream key is not permanent so setting up multiple streams like I do through fragsandbeer.com, YouTube, and Mixer.com ahead of time would not be possible with Facebook’s streaming service.
Real Women of Gaming 