Twitch is a live streaming video platform owned by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon. Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform, Justin.tv, the site primarily focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of eSports competitions, in addition to creative content, "in real life" streams, and more recently, music broadcasts. Content on the site can either be viewed live or via video on demand.
The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of its general-interest counterpart. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers, 38 and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth largest source of peak Internet traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv's parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus – Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014. That month, the service was acquired by Amazon for US $970 million, which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company's subscription service Amazon Prime. Twitch later acquired Curse, an operator of online video gaming communities and introduced means to purchase games through links on streams along with a program allowing streamers to receive commissions on the sales of games that they play.
By 2015, Twitch had more than 1.5 million broadcasters and 100 million viewers per month. As of Q3 2017, Twitch still remains the leading live streaming video service for video games in the US, and has an advantage over YouTube Gaming. As of May 2018, it now has 2.2 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users.
I've wanted to do an article like this for quite some time actually, covering some of my personal favorite channels and streamers that I take pleasure in watching. Twitch is the thing that most people are familiar with when it comes to broadcasting, so I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of my favorites.
When I say Volume One that's because I'm sure that I'm going to have to update this list in the future, so yeah.
Speedrunners
Calebhart42 - My personal favorite Mega Man streamer/speedrunner. He's usually doing runs of Mega Man X (original on Japanese cart at any percent completion for personal best times) or X2 (100% completion). When he's not streaming those games, he's doing runs of Final Fantasy VII. He's also started doing some runs with Maximillian from what I've heard.
TheMexicanRunner - He's known for completing and streaming complete playthroughs of EVERY NES console NTSC release of 800+ titles. He's been mostly running Cuphead recently, but most of the time he's speedrunning Battletoads or any other retro classic titles from that console era. He's been slowly collecting every NES console release too.
LackAttack24 - He streams mostly speedruns of The Legend of Zelda (NES original) and occasionally Mega Man 2.
GamesDoneQuick - Speedrunners come together from around the globe and host a week full of non-stop speedruns, breaking games old and new - all while donating all profits from this event to noteworthy charity organizations, notably for cancer research or doctors without borders.
Speedgaming1 - Daily competitive speedruns, mostly in Super Metroid or The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with randomizer rules.
Speedgaming2 - A companion channel to the above with extra competitors competing in the same bracket.
Entertainment
ShoutFactory - Occasionally streams random episodes of the original run of GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), Classic Old School Wrestling (that WWE surprisingly hasn't bought the rights to for the WWE Network). Their archives include the full complete series marathon of Reboot, Ultraman Leo, Denji Sentai Megaranger (Japanese original series where Power Rangers: In Space's archive footage was pulled from), Street Hawk: The Man... The Machine... and even Mystery Science Theater 3000. Their streams are mostly derived from whatever they are about to release on DVD that they currently hold the license rights to.
Twitch Presents - Currently streaming EVERY episode and every season of Doctor Who to date. I don't know how far they are in this daunting task, but bravo. Last year they streamed every season of Power Rangers to date, followed by complete series runs of Yu-Gi-OH! and Digimon.
Twitch Presents 2 - Weekly Marathons of He-Man, She-Ra, and Voltron (GoLion and Vehicle Voltron original English dubs), roughly five episodes of each a piece before repeating the marathon all day/night on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
For anyone looking to relive their childhood Saturday mornings as kids of the 80's like myself, this is a pleasant treat to put on as you're going to be to wake up for your pre-work routine and still watch some of these classic toons on your way out of the door. Sure, a lot of this stuff hasn't aged well - i.e. Like Prince Adam can't do anything, not even open a jar of pickles without having to resort turning into He-Man. Allura has a similar issue but it comes off as she goes through puberty after turning into She-Ra, despite the voice acting credits cite that roughly the same two women voices every other character in that show.
As for Voltron, it's nice to reflect on that original series and see where it came from but some of the voices were fucking horrible. Looking right at you Sven... I love Michael Bell's voice acting work, but that role had to be his fucking worst one, especially to say that he plays a character in Vehicle Voltron who sounds identical to Sven! Okay, okay, rant over...
CONtv - The best way I can describe this channel as pot luck. They seem to have just about anything for all different tastes. Some days have Zatch Bell marathons or an occasional marathon of Yu-Gi-OH! (mainly the original series, 5D's, or GX - the Bonds Beyond Time movie was actually shown this past weekend), Deltora Quest, or even Saint Seiya (original run). On weekends they seem to show whatever they fancy in terms of classic anime or cartoons, as one weekend I was treated to the full King of Fighters: Destiny anime in its entirety of it's first season. FYI that series has been greenlit for another season, so that was a pleasant surprise to see it on this channel. Another rare treat was the Heavenly Sword CGI movie that was released straight-to-DVD a few years ago. Ninja Theory's criminally underrated PlayStation 3 exclusive that I had my fingers crossed of possibly getting a sequel when Hellblade was first announced. With that studio under Microsoft's umbrella we can pretty much rule that out as a possibility. Still, it was awesome to get to see the events of the game retold in this cinematic format. I'm definitely going to pick that up on DVD when I get a chance. I've reviewed the console release of that game ages ago though.
Fighting Game Community (FGC)
Team Spooky - Home of the weekly Next Level Battle Circuit streams over on the East Coast, while covering FGC events around the globe whenever possible. He hosts local and international FGC streams on his channel as well, so that fans of Mortal Kombat XL, Guilty Gear Xrd, Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Dragon Ball FighterZ won't miss out on the action.
LevelUpLive - Home of Wednesday Night Fights and The Runback, along with most FGC events being held on the West Coast of the United States, ran by Alex "Calipower" Valle himself.
CapcomFighters - Home of the Capcom Pro Tour event streams, specifically for Street Fighter V currently.
TEKKEN - Home of the Tekken World Tour events held around the world. Seems like the Tekken scene always has something going on, either stateside or internationally. If there's a Tekken World Tour event going on, then nine times out of ten, this channel is covering it.
UltraChenTV - Hosted by James Chen and UltraDavid, two renown commentators for the FGC, they offer weekly news on what's going on in terms of the current state of the FGC and itsand FGC tutorial streams in various fighting games.
AvoidingThePuddle - Aris, a prolific, yet controversial figure in the Tekken community, provides commentary on the ins and outs of what's going on in the Tekken community, while occasionally dabbling in other games, such as Dark Souls, Resident Evil series, or whatever tickles his fancy that given night. Definitely one of my favorite pros to watch since he mains one of my favorite Tekken characters, Sergei Dragunov.
Maximillian_DOOD - Popular from his YouTube series, Assist Me!, featuring a comedic live-action approach to fighting game tutorials for Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and it's sequel Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Max is a popular streamer and reviewer of fighting games and some other genres as well. He mainly streams longplay sessions throughout the weekdays of various titles, but joins up with his friends for "Yo! Video Games!" (obvious spoof on Yo! MTV Videos from back in the day) where they play multiplayer games while chatting together on the couch.
mvcclockwork - Mostly streaming from built-in PlayStation 4 streaming app, Marvel vs. Capcom series veteran Clockwork (known mostly for his Strider/Dr. Doom teams in the series) mostly streams his online sessions of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite against randoms as he trains for majors or simply against his roommate for fun. If you don't care about the lack of fancy borders/overlays and just want to watch two guys hanging out playing video games, you can't go wrong here.
Professional Wrestling
House of Hardcore (HoH) - They offer a free alternative to WWE programming almost every week on Thursdays after Impact Wrestling, then on Sundays as well with a rerun stream.
LuchaLibreAAA - Offering mostly old and new matches of their lucha libre product. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately if you speak the language...) ENTIRELY in Spanish. The feed is a bit disorganized too as it's like playing the lottery on whether or not in terms what you're going to get since the content is so damn random. On the plus side, AAA has been offering their biggest PPV of the year, TripleMania, free on this platform live and free to watch, so there's something to be thankful for.
Impact Wrestling - 24/7 offerings of Impact Wrestling's events. Mostly reruns of previous episodes of Impact Wrestling from this past month or highlight compilations featuring former stars that went to WWE or blocks devoted to the heights of the Knockouts division. Occasional live interviews and panels weekly too. You can't beat this content for free. You don't even have to pay for the Global Wrestling Network for this.
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