Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Facebook Live aims to beat Twitch at its own game with help of pro gamer Stephen Ellis

By

Facebook Live has made no secret of its all-conquering ambition to become the go-to game-streaming hub for gamers everywhere. There’s just one small obstacle that stands in the way of its goal; a platform known as Twitch, which currently boasts a massive legion of viewers.

To help it reach the heights that Twitch has already scaled, Facebook has made the strategic decision to hire an individual who has an in-depth understanding of gaming. Stephen “Snoopeh” Ellis has been assigned the role of e-sports strategic partnerships manager at the social network.

Recommended Videos

Using the hands-on experience Ellis gained from his pro gaming days on the e-sports circuit — and his extensive list of contacts — he will work to bring developers and players, and their streaming content, to Facebook. Ellis was reportedly recruited in May, and is working under Facebook’s head of games partnerships for North America, Guy Cross, reports TechCrunch.

Stephen %22Snoopeh%22 Ellis_LinkedIn
Stephen “Snoopeh” Ellis, via LinkedIn Image used with permission by copyright holder

In the short time that Ellis has been at the social network, several major gaming initiatives have been pushed through. On May 13, it was announced that publisher Activision Blizzard was expanding its MLG.tv streaming platform to broadcast events and its e-sports tournaments using Facebook Live. Less than a month later, on June 6, it was announced that Blizzard would be integrating Facebook login and Facebook’s Live API into all its games, including massive-selling titles World of Warcraft, and Overwatch.

Related

During his pro-gaming peak, Ellis gained acclaim for successfully competing in e-sports tournaments, playing one of the most-popular games in the world, League of Legends. Since putting down the gamepad, Ellis has worked as an adviser for gaming analytics firm Repable, and as a VP at e-sports betting company Unikrn. “I’m going to help shape the future of e-sports and gaming,” he declares on his LinkedIn profile.

Facebook’s own outlook when it comes to game streaming is certainly promising. With an existing audience of 1.65 billion users, Ellis shouldn’t have a hard time luring games studios to the social network. Additionally, as a former professional gamer, he understands what other gaming enthusiasts seek from a live-streaming platform. With Ellis in tow, you may end up seeing a lot more gaming content on Facebook Live in the near future.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Saqib Shah
Saqib Shah
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
Best GPU deals: MSI, XFX, EVGA
An AMD graphics card in an external GPU enclosure.

Getting into gaming can be an expensive hobby, especially if you're building a new PC from scratch and want to get the best GPU that you possibly can. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, GPU prices have skyrocketed, especially for RTX 40-series cards, and they don't look to be coming down any time soon, whether you're going for AMD or Nvidia. Luckily, there are still quite a lot of great deals you can take advantage of that will let you snag a card for a great price, and we've collected some of our favorites below. That said if you'd rather go for something that's already been put together, check out these gaming PC deals instead.
XFX SPEEDSTER SWFT210 AMD Radeon RX 6600 Core 8GB GDDR6 -- $230, was $280

XFX is a pretty well-known brand that makes AMD Radeon GPUs, so you're getting a good-quality device right out of the gate. It has an impressive 8GB GDDR6, at least for this price bracket, and will give you a bit longer life out of it when games start using up a lot more VRAM, even at lower graphical settings. While the base clock runs at 2.0 GHz, the boosted clock speed is 2.5 GHz which is pretty good, and the whole thing is unlocked, so you could theoretically boost it higher if you have the right cooling. This RTX 6600 can support resolutions up to 8K, but really, this is an ideal 1080p gaming GPU.

Read more
All upcoming PC games: 2024 and beyond
Ships flying by giant purple towers.

While the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X might dominate the gaming news spotlight, the PC continues to be one of the best gaming platforms out there. 2024 has seen a variety of high-profile releases already, and there's still more to come.

If you're searching for your next big PC game (or want to see what's on the horizon before investing in a new rig), here are the best upcoming PC games set to arrive in 2024 and beyond.
Upcoming PC games 2024
Confirmed 2024 releases
Here’s everything that’s on our radar for 2024. The games immediately below have set release dates. We'll get into anything that's more up in the air below the confirmed launches

Read more
All upcoming Xbox Series X games: 2024 and beyond
Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2

The Xbox Series X and Series S have now been out for three years, bringing better resolution, higher frame rates, and ray tracing to gamers around the world. And the upcoming Xbox Series X games on this list promise to continue to show off all those bells and whistles in fun, new experiences.

If you're eager to find out what Microsoft has in store for the years ahead, we've rounded up every game confirmed so far, including new offerings, franchise installments, and ports of existing titles. We're looking beyond the first-party projects here to encompass all the great games coming to this powerful piece of gaming hardware. Maybe some of them will end up being among the best games on Xbox Series X.
Upcoming Xbox Series X games 2024
The games listed below either have 100% confirmed release dates or solid release windows that we expect them to hit in 2024. Any games with more ambiguous release windows will be listed below the confirmed releases.

Read more