The streaming giant Twitch has now officially made its very first game.
Over the weekend, Twitch has announced Twitch Sings, its first foray into game development. It’s not a traditional game by any means, meaning that it’s not like anything at all being played by the thousands of streamers on the site – it’s a free karaoke game specifically designed for live streaming.
The game formally launched into beta last year and it immediately grabbed the attention of streamers and their many fans on the site. Twitch Sings was developed in conjunction with Harmonix and its catalog includes thousands of karaoke classics. Streamers can sing either alone or in a duet with another person, for double the fun. To add to this, streamers who do not use a face cam can opt out of the default live camera feed by using a personalized avatar that will appear in their place. All the included songs in the catalog are licensed from genuine karaoke content providers, not the major labels, so there’s none of the annoying copyright problems involved.
The move to push this interactivity might stem from the fact that TikTok and its various clones made an empire with the use of karaoke-style apps. Unlike these apps, however, Twitch Sings is designed to both be streamed and interactive at the same time. That is to say that viewers are an integral part of the experience, much like the whole Twitch ecosystem. Viewers can request songs, cheer their streamer on with emotes to activate various light shows, as well as virtual ovations if they felt that the streamer’s performance was worthy of such.
“Twitch Sings unites the fun and energy of being at a live show with the boundless creativity of streamers to make an amazing shared interactive performance,” said Joel Wade, executive producer of Twitch Sings, in a press statement. “Many games are made better on Twitch, but we believe there is a huge opportunity for those that are designed with streaming and audience participation at their core.”
The virtual experience is more than likely another part of Twitch’s attempts to branch out beyond gaming and reach accessibility in a bigger market. Whether or not this appeals to new and existing viewers is still up in the air, but for the meantime, streamers and their fans can try out this new game for themselves.
