Twitch launches TwitchCon, a convention for game streaming fans

By David Nield February 21, 2015

twitch launches twitchcon convention game streaming fans — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Streaming live gameplay over the Web is big business, as Amazon’s $970 million purchase of Twitch last August proved. Now Twitch is expanding its empire with the launch of a TwitchCon gaming conference scheduled to take place on September 25-26 — mark your calendars if you’re eager to hear about all the latest news and innovation from the world of watching other gamers in action.

Unfortunately we don’t know much right now aside from the date and the location — the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where Google I/O, WWDC and several other high-profile events are hosted. If you want to sign up for email updates or are interested in being one of the exhibitors then there’s an official website up and running.

“Created as a celebration of all things Twitch, the convention will attract members of the Twitch community from all over the globe,” reads the official press release. “Attendees will have the chance to mingle with each other and their favorite broadcasters, experience live content from the convention center, and learn from the community’s thought-leaders.” Sounds like the perfect way to spend a couple of days for Twitch fans.

A more detailed schedule and pricing details are going to be announced in the near future, Twitch has promised. While it’s currently the best-known and biggest name in gaming streaming, it can’t afford get complacent: both DailyMotion and Valve have recently launched initiatives to compete with Twitch. The leader in the field will be hoping that its new fall event can help drum up more business and more users.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributor

Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…

Gaming

PS Plus members can cloud stream PS5 games in 4K later this month

Aloy stands on a mountain in Horizon Forbidden West.

PS Plus Premium is adding a new feature next month that will allow subscribers to cloud stream select PlayStation 5 games. The initial list includes heavy hitters like Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Horizon Forbidden West. Sony is targeting an October 30 launch in North America.

Cloud streaming has been one of the primary selling points of PS Plus since its relaunch last year. Subscribers can use the feature to access several games in the service's catalog, including PlayStation 3 games. The new feature will now extend that technology to newer PS5 releases, with Sony saying it plans to make "hundreds" of games streamable.

Gaming

Every summer 2023 gaming showcase: full schedule of live streams

Detective Pikachu and a Slowpoke wearing a cowboy hat.

Summer is one of the most exciting times to be a gamer, as it's when most video game developers and publishers tease what's coming next. For years, this was all centered around E3, but since that show went away during the COVID-19 pandemic, publishers have switched things up and held a variety of reveal-focused live-stream events throughout the entire season. This year has been no different, especially with E3 2023 is canceled.

On May 24, Sony kicked things off with a PlayStation Showcase that revealed games like a Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake and that Bungie is reviving the Marathon series. In June, though, the number of showcases ramped up. Now, things are winding down with new Tokyo Game Show-related events, as well as a second Nintendo Direct. It can be a lot to keep track of, but we're here to help. This is every important, announcement-filled video game live stream that has taken place throughout summer 2023.
PlayStation Showcase: May 24

Gaming

More Black video game heroes shouldn’t be a fantasy

Final Fantasy 16's main cast standing together.

As a Black youth back in the early 2000s, I became an avid gamer after being introduced to Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. From there, I fell in love with nearly every game under the sun, discovering as many as I could. But it was my uncle who would really change my life forever when he showed me my first RPG in Final Fantasy 7 and bought me Kingdom Hearts. So imagine my excitement when I got to see Black characters like Barret on-screen in a heroic RPG. Sure, I’d seen Black characters in games before thanks to the beat 'em up and fighting game genres, but I was thrilled to see them in a genre where the closest thing to people of my complexion was the Black Mage. It opened my young mind to how invisible I was in so much of gaming.

Flash forward to today and you might understand why people like me were so disappointed when Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida argued that the RPG didn't include Black characters for the sake of maintaining "realism" in its European-inspired setting. It felt like a poorly argued step back, though it's not exactly an outlier in the broader industry. While video games have continued to evolve and open themselves up to new audiences through more diverse representation, many of today's biggest games from all around the world still tend to treat white male heroes as the "default" option.