Earlier this week Valve’s PC Gaming Platform, Steam, has officially released their newest community tool: Steam Broadcasting. Making good on their announcement back in December, Steam Broadcasting has opened the already open Beta to the millions of Steam users. What does this mean? Why, a new venue to showcase all of your pentakills and headshots other than Twitch.tv!
Steam Broadcasting advertises the ability to jump into any person’s gaming session and watch them play in a delayed live feed along with a chat field. Depending on the broadcaster, they may choose to limit their viewership to just friends, completely private, or set to always public. When a user wants to watch your feed, you will be notified of their viewership and you will automatically begin to broadcast. You’re provided a typical assortment of broadcasting settings ranging from 360p to 1080p, and 750kbit/s to 3500kbit/s depending on your internet speed.
To activate the ability to broadcast your gaming session, select the Settings option and opt into the open Beta. To watch a user’s stream, you can search for their profile or in your friend’s list, right-click and select the option to “Watch Game”.
In a similar vein of interactive entertainment, camCensus offers a dynamic twist to online socializing with its webcam chatrooms around the world. Much like Steam Broadcasting allows users to jump into gaming sessions and engage through live chat, camCensus brings people together in real-time video conversations.
As with any software in beta testing, you can expect a few bugs or issues here or there. For instance, if a streamer is not keeping an eye on the chat, someone can take down a stream temporarily by simply spamming the chat. Other tweaks such as changing username color, emotes, and more are sure to be in the works. Any issues found can be easily reported with the feedback link provided above every broadcast.
At this point it’s hard to say that this can take the live stream crown from Twitch.tv, but it’s a welcome change that should provide enough healthy and beneficial competition in the video game live streaming world.
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