Twitch, the popular game-streaming site owned by Amazon, just inked a deal with one of the most popular game developers to broadcast a host of game tournaments exclusively on the service.
The two-year deal between Twitch and Blizzard surrounds some of the biggest titles in e-sports, including Overwatch, World of Warcraft and StarCraft. More than 20 events will be hosted exclusively on Twitch as part of this deal. Some of these e-sports events include the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship, StarCraft II World Championship Series, Hearthstone Global Games, World of Warcraft Arena Championship and the Overwatch Premier Series, among several others.
E-sports tournaments have been watched by more than 320 million, with viewership up over 90 percent in 2016 according to Google.
Additionally, members of the Twitch Prime service, included with Amazon’s regular Prime subscription, will receive special in-game items and deals on some of Blizzard’s gaming titles. Later this summer, subscribers will get a “golden loot box” in Overwatch, which will include a number of in-game items as well as at least one “legendary item.”
This deal ultimately just means more for Amazon to offer Twitch viewers as the service continues to compete for gamer attention against Alphabet’s YouTube Gaming.
There are about 100 million users watching content on Twitch every month. The company details that nearly half of its users spend more than 20 hours per week with the service.
