Twitch Viewership Rivaling Cable Channels

Maybe Amazon and Google both realize that watching other people play video games is the wave of the future. This past Monday, Amazon made its announcement of buying Twitch for just under $1 billion.

The New York Times reports that prime time viewership on Twitch rivals that of average cable channels including MTV, TruTV, MSNBC, E!, CNN, and HLN. Still, Twitch still has a long way to go when compared with online video such as Netflix and YouTube, which are 8X and 24X larger, respectively.

With eSports attracting more attention every year, perhaps Twitch can be somewhat of an ESPN for gamers in the future? The mainstream media seems to find it odd that people are interested in viewing others play video games, but is this really that much different from watching other people play football, billiards, or poker on TV?

Personally, I do not really keep up with sports, nor do I with eSports, however, it will be interesting to see what Amazon will do with Twitch. As an investor of video games, I have only used Twitch to watch live demos of games that I could potentially invest in, however, now that I actually have an account, maybe it’s time for me to start watching or start broadcasting!

So what do you think? Do you think Twitch, or something similar can actually rival cable TV? I think we have all heard about the “Starcraft” channel on Korean TV. Do you think Twitch could be the Internet’s answer to that? Would it inspire cable TV operators to start video game channels?