Mobile Dota 2-like Heroes of Order & Chaos gets built-in Twitch broadcasting

Multiplayer online arena battlers like League of Legends and Dota 2 are some of the most popular games in the world, and livestreaming on Twitch is a big contributor to that popularity. Now, a mobile MOBA is aiming to build up its audience by including built-in streaming with the help of Amazon’s latest acquisition.

Developer Gameloft and Twitch are working together to implement Twitch broadcasting for Heroes of Order & Chaos on iOS in an update due to his the App Store tomorrow. That free-to-play MOBA brings the team-based strategic action of the genre to smartphones and tablets, and it has already surpassed more than 11 million downloads. With livestreaming, the game could find a new audience through Twitch’s user-generated content. This is the second game on mobile, after Gameloft’s Asphalt 8: Airborne racer, to get built-in Twitch streaming on mobile devices. Earlier this week, Amazon announced that it is acquiring Twitch for $970 million, and its mobile features likely played into its final sale price.

”Heroes of Order & Chaos is the benchmark MOBA game on mobile,” Gameloft vice president of publishing in the Americas Baudouin Corman said in a statement. “It’s only natural that it would be the first to integrate with Twitch.”

MOBA is one of the hottest categories for upstart developers looking to find a footing in free-to-play games. League of Legends generated more than $600 million in revenue last year, and Gameloft — along with Zynga’s Solstice Arena and Hammer & Chisel’s Fates Forever — is trying to replicate that success on mobile. With live video capabilities, Heroes of Order & Chaos is potentially on the path to making that happen.

Twitch already dominates streaming on PC and consoles, and it is slowly working on establishing the same kind of grasp on mobile gaming. The popular MOBA genre could help it accomplish that.

“With the omnipresence of mobile gaming, we are constantly looking for great games aligned with the interests of the Twitch community,” Twitch business-development director Brooke Van Dusen said. “Since MOBAs are one of the hottest genres on our platform, integrating Twitch broadcasting into Heroes of Order & Chaos is the ideal title to further tap into what our users are playing.”

In addition to the new game, Twitch and Gameloft are also expanding broadcasting support in Asphalt 8: Airborne to more versions of the iPhone and iPad. This includes iPhone 5, 5C, and 5S along with iPad 4, Mini Retina, and Air. The update to enable that support will hit the iTunes App Store tomorrow.