YouTube Gaming to shut down as Google launches new hub

Gaming is one of the most popular categories on YouTube. Google, however, failed to strike a chord with the community with its dedicated gaming app.

As of now, YouTube Gaming has 5,000,000+ downloads on Google Play Store with 4.2 average rating (out of 5). (Reuters)

Google is finally pulling the plug on YouTube Gaming after the dedicated platform failed to take off with the gaming enthusiasts around the world. Google is now merging the platform with a new gaming hub. The company is also focusing on popular and new gamers to boost its new hub with dedicated pages for particular games.

YouTube Gaming was introduced in 2015 as Google hoped to cash in on growing gaming community on its video sharing platform. The new platform also competed with other gaming streaming platforms like Twitch. The idea behind the dedicated platform was to build a larger gaming community with personalised features. The platform allowed users to stream games at 60fps along with a number of creators-focused features.

As of now, YouTube Gaming has 5,000,000+ downloads on Google Play Store with 4.2 average rating (out of 5). The app will be available till the transition completes, and will shut down officially in March, 2019.

Ryan Wyatt, head of YouTube Gaming, told Polygon that the dedicated app for gaming wasn't helping creators extend their visibility much.

"The problem is, if you didn't have the app, or you weren't using the gaming hub to kind of like discover this content, creators weren't as discoverable," Wyatt told Polygon. "So many of these users are just using YouTube and the regular YouTube experience. You'd have some people that funneled through into the gaming app, or the gaming destination, but we were finding we still weren't touching many people daily."

Wyatt is also bullish on the new gaming hub as it will come more and better features. For instance, it will show "top live games and the latest gaming videos from your subscriptions."

Polygon said the new gaming hub is quite similar to Twitch which is now owned by Amazon.