While Amazon's purchase of Twitch may have surprised gamers, it probably wouldn't be shocking to hear that Google was in talks to purchase the streaming video content platform though the deal was soured by the possibility of anti-trust lawsuits.
Google already owns Youtube, which offers video content both paid and free, live-streaming and recorded, in addition to established revenue streams, though Twitch's growing popularity marks an obvious threat to Youtube's dominance in the space.
Amazon CEO and new owner of a shiny, 2014 four-door Twitch.tv (with plenty of cupholders for people to spam emoticons in) had the following to say via press release:
Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month—from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community.
For many consumers, it can be hard to hear that corporations have to worry about things like "making too much money" and "having too many of the things people love". Hopefully the competition in online video pushes all areas of media forward.
[Forbes]
