Facebook To Add Livestreaming Tools, To Compete With Twitch

Facebook wants to compete directly with Twitch and Youtube by offering their own livestreaming tools for games. Good luck. According to Gamasutra, Facebook describes their service as, "this new feature makes it easier than ever to stream your PC gameplay to friends and followers and engage with them while you play."

The social media giant is banking on their billion—or so—strong userbase.

While I don't see the tools giving any trouble to Twitch, or even YouTube, it may incentive niche vloggers to stream through Facebook. Yes, there is already a broadcast service but it only works with mobile. The new tool will integrate with third-party software such as Xsplit and OBS. So you may see an artist or a cook or life-vlogger sharing through Facebook, somebody with an established presence already on the platform.

This isn't Facebook's first foray into gaming-described software.

Facebook launched Gameroom back in November, 2016: a desktop platform where its users could play mobile games and Unity games through their Facebook account. It's okay. Not going to take away from Steam's userbase. But if players are already integrated through Facebook it serves as a reasonable alternative than always logging in through your browser.

Maybe Facebook will one day be a hub for gaming. But I don't see it happening anytime soon. What do you think?