Twitch is a Fun Medium Rip-Roaring with Marketing Potential

I'm new to Twitch, but it's a cool concept: watch people play games, but maybe not for the reasons you'd think. Sure, I can respect a speedrun, especially if the possibility of breaking a record is greater than just someone playing a game for an audience. Also, the interaction with these individuals who are being watched kind of subconsciously gives one the feeling of talking to a "celebrity", when it's not necessarily true. Although I'm old fashioned, and watching someone play a game doesn't inherit donation, I do like to watch someone play a game that I may be interested in playing, and getting a good look that beats a five minute demo, but not necessarily a full walk through. It's great game marketing, the same way movie rentals from old-school movie stores let you watch a movie before buying the VHS tape. 

     

    To me, Twitch is something to watch that's not only fun, but it can be resourceful, although I'm not sure getting your money on people playing games is a good waste of one's money, but it still shows that the world is always changing, and how we work, how we play, and most importantly, how we decide what is a call for celebrity status, will be entirely in the eyes of the beholder, and not a network, or Hollywood agent. 

    Twitch is a live streaming, video-sharing website, where people play video games for an audience. Sometimes this is for the benefit of those who do not have the system, or like I've stated above, for those I tested in playing a game without the worry of purchasing and then disregarding it later as a waste of sixty bucks. I'm not sure if most people will agree with me, as the whole point is for people to either donate to the gamers, and have them either give you something back, and I suppose many do provide a bit of entertainment, however, I truly do not understand the purpose of Twitch, and maybe that's the point: it is whatever the consumer allows it to be. If they want to bet on games, they bet, if they want to watch a speed run, they do that,'or if they just want to watch someone play a game, and nothing more,then it is for that reason they watch Twitch. Whatever the purpose I find Twitch entertaining, and although I was adamantly against it when the concept was first shown, it goes to show you that Twitch wasn't wrong, now that we give out video game scholarships, and actually take it very seriously, and now thwt teams in colleges will be playing against one-another across the country, it's not surprising to see thwt Twitch isn't just trendy, but a glimpse of a potential future; the very primitive mold of the sports and entertainments divisions that will be viewed by our children's children. 

     Before you go saying this is the end of everything, many naysayers have said the same thing about chess, basketball, football, and other extracurricular activities as a waste of time. Remember, many still think education should be the end-all, be-all of our society, yet more money over the invidivudal's lifetime is more realistically made even playing major league soccer, than working at the starting position of a Fortune 500 company. If you think gaming cannot get to that extreme, think back less than one-hundred years ago, when professional football was played to a crowd of maybe twenty people, and college ball was filling out stadiums. Pro video gaming has a similar correlation, and has tried and failed about the equal amount of times so far, and believe me, it only stands to grow with the forthcoming generations. 

      So Twitch, and MLG,,and other pro organizations that have come and gone, may be the building blocks of whatever will be the fancy marketing tool of the major professional gig to come about, snd take the video gaming world by storm. Remember, even professional wrestling was seen as a joke,and in many way, it still is today,mbut the WWE is now a multi-billion dollar industry, one which most everyone knows, or has come in contact with someone who knows of it, because it is nearly impossible to escape. It is a global phenomenon, and I'm certain video games will follow suit once the right marketer gets behind it, because global tournaments are literally a sign-in password, and HTML away from being the next mainstream professional entertainment juggernaut. 

    Twitch is great,and once it actually defines itself it, or something similar, better, and more apt to sustain a wide audience, will be the ultimate foundation of video games come to the mainstream, and you may just have your kids playing Tekken, or Street Figher over learning how to dunk a basketball, because the money will be astronomical for the players, and the bets will be just as fantastic on the said outcome of the "professional gamers." 

      Sure,you can say tournaments are quite large, some even rake in millions and millions of dollars, but once they break that barrier,,they'll never be a professional gig in the ways of major sports, although major sport titles bring in quite a bit of money in their said tournaments, and that will probably be where it truly begins. 

       

Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial! Your constant support is always welcome, and greatly appreciated! I have not been doing Monday Blogs on Twitter as often, because I've been too busy coming up with something I've not done before: ten previews of some of the best, most anticipated, and some least anticipated games of 2015. ( disclaimer: all games previewed are optioned for 2015 release dates, but can be delayed at the developer's expense.) I'm calling this segment of the Malcast Editorial: Preview-A-Palooza! Ten games, ten of the more well-known, and least known games that will be releasing sometime this year, and the good, and barely acceptable each is going to bring to consoles. To be fair, I'll do one exclusive from each major system (Yes, even the Wii U) and the rest will either be cross platform games, or DLC exclusives.....maybe, I'm not exactly sure I want to go that route, but whatever happens, it will be fun. 

      The first post two posts will be up next Monday, followed by two more posts each on Wednesday and Friday. So six the first week, four the second. 

         Twitter.com/mcasteditorial or @mcasteditorial for my Twitter feed, and my e-mail is mcasteditorial@yahoo.com, though I don't tend to get much e-mail these days, which is fine, but if you want just send me a message on twitter, it's much easier to find me there.