Valve's Steam TV could offer real competition for Twitch

Valve's Steam TV could offer real competition for Twitch

Valve launched a brand new Steam feature over the weekend and promptly pulled it just a few hours later. What we saw of it in the meantime though does leave us intrigued about what kind of impact it could have on the dominance Twitch and YouTube enjoy in the gaming streaming space.

Steam TV appeared online as a website URL completely detached from the Steam service in every fashion. It was blank, until this weekend, when it began airing footage from the 2018 International DotA 2 World Championships which are ongoing at this time.

This isn't the only way that Valve hosts streams of its flagship multiplayer esports title, but Steam TV is a new effort to build a dedicated platform to game streaming that's twinned with, but not built inside, Steam, thereby opening up its viewership to everyone who isn't a Steam gamer -- a crucial advantage of websites like Twitch and YouTube.

Steam TV does appear to have been a bit of a premature launch though, as while it was running a stream for a while, if you try to visit it today you'll once again be greeted by a blank, white window. It may be back up soon though, as Kotaku received the following statement from Valve when it was pressed for comment:

"We are working on updating Steam Broadcasting for the Main Event of The International, Dota 2’s annual tournament. What people saw was a test feed that was inadvertently made public."

Would you be interested in using a Valve backed streaming service to broadcast your games, or to watch others in return?

Image source: Kotaku