French video-sharing platform Dailymotion has announced plans to launch a site dedicated to live streams of video games, according to the Wall Street Journal. The move puts Dailymotion in direct competition with streaming giant Twitch, and adds a new vector to its longtime rivalry with YouTube.
Dailymotion Games is now live, with streams available to watch on the web or through a dedicated app on Android, iOS, and PlayStation 4. The rising popularity and legitimacy of eSports plays a central role in the French startup’s interest in game streaming.
“Dailymotion Games is entirely dedicated to eSports fans and streamers who come together every evening to form an amazingly talented and gregarious community,” said Dailymotion COO Martin Rogard in a statement. “Over the coming months, we will significantly increase our investment in the eSport domain to ensure worldwide recognition of all our talented content producers.”
The site’s current most viewed games are, in descending order, League of Legends, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto V, Hearthstone, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. At launch, Dailymotion Games has announced partnerships with Eclypsia, Millenium, joinDOTA, OnGameNet, IGN, JeuxVideo.com, and Gamespot to produce content.
Twitch, the current leader in game streaming, rose to further prominence in the tech world when purchased by Amazon in August 2014 for nearly $1 billion. Dailymotion draws 128 million unique visitors monthly for more than 2.5 billion video views. The Paris-based site attempted a sale to Yahoo in 2013, but the deal fell through.
