By Sarah E. Needleman 

Amazon.com Inc.'s live-streaming business, Twitch, is entering the fast-growing market for digitally delivered computer videogames, a move that will give its most popular broadcasters the opportunity to earn a percentage of sales.

A "buy" button will appear this spring on website broadcasts of computer games from 20 companies, Twitch said Monday. Viewers will be able to download the games -- as well as add-ons such as expansion packs and virtual goods -- directly from the site.

Twitch ranks No. 8 among the top 500 most visited websites in the U.S. by average time spent per visitor, according to comScore Inc. Amazon bought the site in August 2014 for $970 million. The e-commerce giant has since delved deeper into the $100 billion game industry, releasing its own content as well as game-creation software called Lumberyard that other developers can use free.

Gamers are increasingly choosing downloads over discs. Sales of digitally delivered PC games, excluding add-ons, reached $5.4 billion last year, up 11% from 2015 and 67% from 2012, according to SuperData Research Inc.

Under Twitch's new commerce program, game companies will receive 70% of sales, similar to what Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. share with app developers. Twitch, however, will fork over 5% to streamers, keeping 25% for itself, the company said.

More than two dozen games will automatically get the buy button at launch, including Ubisoft Entertainment SA's "Tom Clancy's The Division" and Telltale Games' Batman series, with more expected later, Twitch said. It declined to specify when the buy button would appear.

More than two million people stream gameplay and other content on Twitch. The buy button, though, will appear only on Twitch's website on launch games broadcast by the roughly 17,000 people included in its partner program, which shares revenue from ads and offers other benefits. Streamers, who must identify games they are broadcasting, won't be able to remove the button.

"We want to grow Twitch as a social video network," said Matt McCloskey, vice president of commerce at Twitch. "Providing commerce opportunities for businesses, whether as streamers or developers, drives growth."

Twitch's biggest rival, Alphabet Inc.'s YouTube, doesn't sell games. Still, Twitch faces stiff competition in the game-download market from Valve Corp.'s Steam. Publishers such as Activision Blizzard Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. also sell game downloads online, while retail stores such as GameStop Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sell cards with codes for downloading games.

Consumers can already buy packaged games from Amazon's marketplace of third-party sellers. Twitch streamers that are part of Amazon's associates program can include links with their broadcasts to the marketplace and earn a commission on sales. Twitch streamers that are sponsored by game publishers and advertisers are marked as such.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 28, 2017 02:47 ET (07:47 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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