When there are too many things packed into one place, experience can be confusing. This is why internet companies are diversifying their products and put them into individual homes to live on their own.
The same goes with YouTube Gaming. Launched in 2015, it's a spinoff to compete with Amazon's Twitch, it acts as a central hub where people can find and watch people live streaming their own video gameplay.
It's also a way to make gaming experience better, while still under the YouTube flag.
While the responses were generally positive, the service on its own didn't perform as good as YouTube's expectations. For this reason, YouTube decided to shut down YouTube Gaming, and replacing it with its own page on YouTube's main website.
“We have a strong and vibrant audience on the YouTube Gaming app, but the amount of gamers we are able to reach is far bigger on YouTube.”
With YouTube Gaming on the YouTube homepage, you can browse the games and creators you love and discover new ones as well. Who have you been watching lately? https://t.co/e6jS7fpD95
— YouTube Gaming (@YouTubeGaming) September 18, 2018
The Gaming page isn't very different to the original Gaming site, and YouTube hopes that it can bring more viewers and content creators together as they aren’t being forced to shuffle between the two sites.
First of all, the landing page shows users recommended streams and videos, along with the most-streamed live games. The results shown on this page vary from one user to another, as algorithms decide which should be shown. Criteria includes subscribed channels, history and more.
The page also allows users to set reminders for upcoming livestreams, directly to their Google Calendar. And if the users want, they can also subscribe to individual games to see more contents on that game when there are new posts uploaded/streamed.
The differences between YouTube Gaming and the Gaming page on YouTube aren't very noticeable.
By merging the two apps together, experience could also be improved since users aren't only presented with games. So for example, if in any given moment they got bored with games, they can easily watch recommended YouTube videos to refresh their mind. And they can do that from one place.
No need to switch back and forth.
YouTube launched Gaming as its own site in 2015, as a counter-measure to anticipate the meteoric rise of Twitch. The site was equipped with things like special chat monetization features and channel memberships to encourage users to make money from their content.
But apparently, things just didn't work well over there.
So instead of maintaining two apps, YouTube decided to ditch the lesser one, and merges it with the main YouTube. After all, many of YouTube Gaming users are also regular YouTube users.