The hot rumor of the week is that Youtube plans on buying out Twitch TV for the hefty sum of $1 Billion. Now, as of this writing, this is still just a rumor - nothing official has been announced - but it would make quite a bit of sense. So let's say this rumor is true and Youtube does end up purchasing Twitch TV, and let's speculate on what that would mean for the landscpe of gaming.

Honestly, Twitch TV has been pretty successful up until now, managing to acquire 45 million users per month, as well as accounting for "1.35% of all downstream bandwidth on North American fixed-access broadband networks in March 2014," according to Variety. So, needless to say, whatever Twitch TV is doing, it's doing it correctly. Realistically, there's no good reason for Youtube to change anything on Twitch too drastically.


It will, however, have a cultural effect, I believe. While 45 million users per month is an impressive number for a relatively nitch online community, it's nothing even close to the broad, mainstream appeal that YouTube has. Youtube has about 1 billion users per month, worldwide. That is an insnae amount of traffic and attention, so rest assured that with an audience that size, a couple of ears are going to perk up when/if Youtube buys out Twitch TV.

Now here's where things could potentially get tricky. One of the reasons that Youtube is as successful as it is is because it's a fairly tame place. Youtube has pretty strict guidelines for what is and isn't allowed, meaning that anyone from a 5 year old kid to a super conservative 90 year old grandma can freely enjoy the content on the site.

So how does this relate to Twitch? Well, it's possible that Youtube could start putting similar restrictions and guidelines on content that comes through Twitch. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is both good and bad. Bad because I believe in having the freedom to do as you please, to be able to swear and curse during your gameplay videos if you so choose.

Good, though, because let's be honest, a lot of gaming culture is a little rough around the edges. With sexism still persisting in the competitive scene, and things like the Playstation Playroom sex scandals, even someone as immersed in the culture as I am can find it kind of hard to participate. If the kind of gaming activity that Twitch represents is ever going to reach the level of mainstream acceptance that we want it to, it's going to need to be refined.

Still, though, as long as Twitch continues to draw in as many viewers as it is, I don't really see Youtube demanding too many drastic policy changes. And, of course, this is all assuming that the rumors even turn out to be true.