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Kevin Lin wants to make Twitch more interactive

We're almost ready to "go full-blown Hunger Games."

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The new Twitch Extensions, which doesn't seem so interesting at first glance, might offer up some interesting ways to play games in the future.

Kevin Lin, co-founder of Twitch, wants to make games a lot more interactive than they are now, and with the announcement of Galactic Disagreements by indie studio Hitbox Team last month, he might be a lot closer to his vision of the future than people think.

Galactic Disagreements was commissioned by Twitch and developed to be specifically played by people watching Twitch. As a viewer, you are put on one of two teams, at random, and then you have to gather resources to create spaceships and spawn them on the battlefield where both teams will be battling it out. The game was announced on TwitchCon and is directly inspired by a little event we all know as Twitch Plays Pokémon.

During an interview with GamesIndustry.biz Kevin Lin said:

"Ever since Twitch Plays Pokémon happened, we've thought 'hey, there really is a new paradigm for development here' - one where you build games that are fundamentally very fun and good to play, just as other games are, but that actually bring in audience interactivity."

Galactic Disagreements isn't the only game utilizing Twitch's new Extensions, however. There's also indie platformer Choice Chamber, which was funded by Kickstarter, and Streamline from Proletariat, the crew behind World Zombination. They are also working on another game utilising Extensions entitled Stream Legends, an RPG that viewers can play together.

"It's definitely not a gimmick," Lin continued in the interview. "The early games you'll see are going to be fairly simple, but interactive amongst viewers and ideally with the broadcaster as well. I think as people figure it out, you'll start to see pretty robust games built in there."

"I think you can go full-blown Hunger Games," Lin said. "You look at the success and continued growth of Battle Royale games and particularly PUBG - probably one of the fastest growing games in history. It would be super cool to add in that sort of mechanic where the audience can vote, or vote with their money, to help their favourite player or team out. That's very near."

Some very interesting ideas and concepts at play here. It will be fun to see just how interactive they can make the games. And hopefully, things won't get too similar to Hunger Games!

What do you think of these types of games?

Kevin Lin wants to make Twitch more interactive


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