YouTube has decided to shut down its dedicated gaming app and has announced a new gaming section within the YouTube website and mobile application. From now on, youtube.com/gaming will offer personalized carousel of content, which includes new uploads and live streams from subscribed channels along with trending videos.
YouTube Gaming had features like Game Pages for discoverability, Super Chat, Channel Memberships, and Dark Theme. Over time, some of the features made their way to the primary YouTube app.
Ryan Wyatt, YouTube’s director of gaming content says that instead of keeping features marooned on YouTube Gaming, the company plans to make them part of the main site and retire the existing dedicated app and site in March 2019.
The new gaming-related page on YouTube will have some additional features. Games will now also have their own pages, highlighting popular videos, live streams, and other games created by the developer and publisher in question. Users will also have the ability to subscribe to the games pages individually.
To improve discoverability, YouTube Gaming will highlight smaller creators, which the company deems to be “On The Rise.” The company says that the curated pick of creators will change every week. The feature will be limited to the US only in the initial stage.
The main reason behind shutting down the dedicated gaming app is the company’s failure to find big enough audience. YouTube Gaming originally launched in 2015 after the video game streaming platform Twitch exploded in popularity and was bought by Amazon in 2014.
