Amazon’s video game streaming site Twitch says its 100 million monthly viewers like to watch hours of gameplay. But a new sort-of-competitor thinks some people want to watch games only a few seconds at a time.
Instagram for Twitch? This Social Site Is About Short and Shareable Gaming ‘Moments.’
“Games are designed to have these moments of delight.” Is sharing them delightful, too?
Plays.tv is a new social site from Raptr, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that caters to the PC gaming community. Users download an application (currently Windows-only) that automatically records their screens while they play any game; after something happens in the game that they want to share, they press the right keys and the app readies a short video clip of what it just saw. That clip can then be shared to Plays.tv’s own network, as well as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
“Games are designed to have these moments of delight,” Raptr CEO Dennis Fong said. “It’s a pretty cool moment that’s a window into other people and for discovering new games, new worlds and new experiences.”
Fong added that he doesn’t see Twitch as a direct competitor because it’s optimized for much longer video sessions and for live viewing events like eSports. By default, Plays.tv’s clips are 20 seconds long, and can only go as long as 20 minutes. While only 1.5 million Twitchers currently create videos, Fong said he expected the new site’s more casual, social structure could eventually drive “tens of millions” of people to start making gameplay videos.
Raptr also announced that it had raised $14 million in new funding from AMD, Accel Partners, DAG Ventures and Tenaya Capital.
This is the second social network for the company, which dropped its first effort last year after pivoting in 2013 to focus on optimizing video game graphics and performance.
Correction: An earlier version of the story mistakenly stated Raptr is based in Redwood City.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
