Gaming Live launches game-streaming platform to compete with Twitch

Gaming Live wants to provide competition for Amazon’s Twitch in video game livestreaming.

The Warsaw, Poland-based Gaming Live, which is part of the Seedcamp business accelerator, has announced it is going to launch a beta version of its platform “to battle Twitch” on Feb. 1. That won’t be an easy competition, as Twitch has pioneered game livestreaming for e-sports and other fans over the last few years. At last count, Twitch had 60 million monthly visitors. But the Polish company is out to show that livestreaming can support more than one big company. Twitch grew so fast that it drew the attention of Amazon, which acquired Twitch for $970 million last summer.

Gaming Live will evidently focus on the European market, starting with the launch of a beta version on Feb. 1.

Gaming Live has developed a platform that enables amateur and professional gamers, gaming companies, and others to broadcast video games, e-sports, and related content. The platform will enable users to monetize, presumably through ads, just as Twitch does. Gaming Live said it has also achieved “transcoding efficiency over the competition,” meaning it can convert video to run on the Web in a more efficient way.

The company said it is providing all users with free 480p transcoding and accepts livestreams in 2K quality (with a 2,048-by-1,152  resolution) with no bit rate and framerate limitations. That basically means it will try to beat Twitch on video quality.

A spokesman for Twitch said, “It is always validating for the appeal of live video when new companies enter the space.”

Gaming Live will also redo its web application that players use to view or broadcast their recordings. The company plans to release mobile apps for Android and iOS devices in the couple of weeks after relaunch. It will also roll its service out on smart TVs, gaming consoles, and DVB-T decoders (settop boxes) at the outset. Gaming Live will announce service provider and media agency deals in the near future.

For those who are already established in the livestreaming scene, Gaming Live has offered a $4 cost per mil (cost per 1,000 viewers) and 60 percent of gross revenues from the subscription module. It will have other ways for users to make money as well.

“The last six months gave us a lot. It is a completely re-designed gaming experience. Even though we know how big community around Twitch is, what kind of budgets they are operating with and how they have progressed over the last years, we know that startups are there to prove they can do something better,” said chief operating officer Krystian Berg said in a statement. “Rivalry is good, it brings better products to market. In the long-term, we want to focus on giving the content creators tools to create the best and most engaging content and allow them build audiences around their activities more effectively, as a lot of them currently struggles on oversaturated platforms.”