Quote From Out of Cards Update Jan 26, 7:00 PM Eastern: We originally stated that YouTube does not have the tech for in-game drops. This was incorrect and it is a more recent addition to YouTube with them partnering with PUBG, Riot Games, Epic Games, and FACEIT to provide in-game rewards. There is a high chance that the same system will be used with Blizzard's titles, though no confirmation has been made yet.
You can view YouTube's connected accounts system by logging in to YouTube and visiting account settings. Here you will find Connected accounts. Do note that you cannot use connected accounts with a brand account.
Friday afternoon, Google announced via a press release that they partnered with Activision Blizzard to bring Esports onto YouTube.
- The multi-year "strategic relationship" makes YouTube the exclusive streaming partner outside of China.
- This includes Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone Esports, and more.
- Activision Blizzard will also be making use of Google Cloud as their "preferred cloud provider".
- Prior to this, Activision Blizzard has been working with Google to boost analytics and "overall player experience".
No word on whether in-game drops are going to return for Hearthstone, though it should be noted that YouTube has the tech, it will just require Blizzard to implement it.
Are you going to miss Twitch Drops? Are you going to watch Hearthstone Esports on YouTube?
Quote From Google SANTA MONICA, Calif. and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan. 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ – Activision Blizzard and Google announced today a multi-year strategic relationship to power new player experiences. Google Cloud will serve as the preferred provider for Activision Blizzard's game hosting infrastructure and YouTube as its exclusive streaming partner worldwide, excluding China, for live broadcasts of its popular esports leagues and events — including Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone Esports, and more.
With hundreds of millions of monthly active users around the world, Activision Blizzard sought a partner to help enhance its gaming infrastructure, as well as deliver superior, low-latency player experiences. The company turned to Google Cloud because of its highly reliable global footprint, advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, and commitment to open source, creating a platform for building future gaming innovations.
Players will benefit by experiencing premium network quality-of-service, including low latency and packet loss when playing high-fidelity games on any device. They will also have optimal personalized interactions, as Activision Blizzard can tap into Google Cloud's AI tools to offer curated recommendations for in-game offers and differentiated gaming experiences.
"We've worked closely with Activision Blizzard for the past few years across mobile titles to boost its analytics capabilities and overall player experience," said Sunil Rayan, Head of Gaming, Google Cloud. "We are excited to now expand our relationship and help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world."
"We're excited to partner with Google to drive the next generation of gaming innovation for the industry. Google Cloud's best-in-class infrastructure gives us the confidence to deliver great entertainment to our fans around the world," said Jacques Erasmus, Chief Information Officer, Activision Blizzard.
Additionally, beginning this week, YouTube will host the official live broadcasts of Activision Blizzard's popular esports leagues and events including the newly created Call of Duty League, Overwatch League, Hearthstone Esports, and more. The inaugural Call of Duty League season kicks off on Friday, January 24, with 12 teams competing in Minnesota, and the Overwatch League's 2020 season will follow on February 8. All competitions will be livestreamed on each league's YouTube channel and will include archived and other special content.
"With more than 200 million gamers a day watching more than 50 billion hours of gaming content per year, YouTube provides gamers and their passionate fans with the most popular video gaming platform in the world," said Ryan Wyatt, Head of Gaming, YouTube. "Both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League are the quintessential examples of world class esports content. As a former Call of Duty esports commentator myself, I couldn't be more excited for Activision Blizzard to choose YouTube as its exclusive home for the digital live streaming of both leagues. This partnership further demonstrates our dedication to having a world class live streaming product for gaming."
"This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world," said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports. "It's our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube's powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment."
This collaboration with Activision Blizzard represents Google's ongoing commitment to supporting game developer success around the globe. Across its business units, Google offers comprehensive solutions for game developers, empowering them to create great games, connect with players, and scale their businesses.
About Google
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Through products and platforms like Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Google Cloud, Chrome and YouTube, Google plays a meaningful role in the daily lives of billions of people and has become one of the most widely-known companies in the world. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.About Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard, Inc., connects and engages the world through epic entertainment. A member of the Fortune 500 and S&P 500, Activision Blizzard is a leading interactive entertainment company. We delight hundreds of millions of monthly active users around the world through franchises including Call of Duty®, Spyro®, and Crash Bandicoot™, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft®, Overwatch®, Hearthstone®, Diablo®, StarCraft®, and Heroes of the Storm®, and King's Candy Crush™, Bubble Witch™, and Farm Heroes™. The company is one of the Fortune "100 Best Companies To Work For®." Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Blizzard has operations throughout the world. More information about Activision Blizzard and its products can be found on the company's website, www.activisionblizzard.com.SOURCE Google Inc.
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So far, not signon connection your hearthstone account to youtube, ~48 hours before Arlington starts. I have a feeling drops will not be part of this event. probably means viewership will also be insanely low, but the chat will be full of "!drop" messages by clueless people as always.
I don't know if I really want to give Google even more info on me and my account...
I think it's sad as so many people have a lot invested in Twitch plus streamers get the Prime sub revenue which, I guess, they wouldn't get from YT.
OMG. Another thing Google is gonna spoil. Google is a shitty company overall. Everything it touches, becomes tracking, advertisement, abuse and violations of human privacy. Sad times for Blizzard esports.
Truthfully, I'm not sure any of this will actually matter. If your favorite show went from Fox to NBC, it'd still be your favorite show. \
I imagine almost everyone who posted here doesn't actually watch Blizzard e-sports anyway. They just like to complain.
The people who watch esports will still watch. It's not as if Youtube streaming is a broken product that will make it unwatchable.
But without Drops the viewership will, most likely, drop a lot. A lot
Someone in this thread said that YouTube does drops for Fortnite or something. I imagine they'll figure it out for Hearthstone as well.
On one hand, fuck Twitch. THat platform is rotten to the core and plagued by insane deicions making and other garbage.
On the other hand, YouTube isn't any better, if not worse.
I hope this doesn't end up affecting regular streamers as well, because despite everything Twitch does wrong, it's at least not as downright incompetent as YOuTube
Google is desperate to recoup those Stadia losses.
RIP Blizzard Esports.
YouTube streaming OMEGALUL yeah thats going to be a pass for me
It's sentences like these that make me itch all over. These meaningless, empty phrases that only sound good to CEO's and their like.
Youtube streaming OMEGALUL
This sounds very worrying to me. Activision is still the owner of a patent on manipulating matchmaking to reward players who make in-game purchases.
Seriously? Where's my help then lol I've spent a sh*t ton of money on HS and I'm always (literally always) matched up against someone who counters my deck directly. It's gotten so bad that I've pretty much stopped playing at all recently...
well, actually that would make a lot of sense, but not in the way of "reward".
If the system understood that you are willing to invest money, they could also use it to trigger you buying that one pack more, bc you are missing dust/that specific card etc.
Climbing almost legend, but then....too bad you didnt make it. You might be buying new packs to get that new deck to counter what you lost against those last matches.
They have a patent, but that doesn't mean it's implemented. But if they'd never consider implementing a mechanism like that, they wouldn't have bothered to spend money to patent it.
Scumbag. I already now it was scripted and this is just another thing to hate toward blizzard.
I'm done with this game.
There is no evidence this is currently implemented for Hearthstone. But "differentiated gaming experiences" has me worried in what way they want game experiences to be different, especially when it comes right after "curated recommendations for in-game offers".
I mean everyone call it "confirmation bias" but it's literally impossible that I find it only on HS and not in Magic arena, Runeterra, ESL, Shadowverse where drawing and random are not that "precise"
No drop me no watch.
(I like opening packs more than playing the actual game I've realized).
Any news where they will be streaming Masters Arlington this weekend?