Facebook is adding co-streaming to Facebook Gaming, a useful feature the Twitch competitor has lacked since it launched in 2018. Additionally, while Twitch’s version of a co-streaming feature — “Squad Stream” — requires you to be a Twitch Partner, Facebook is making co-streaming available to everyone.
“With co-streaming, we aim to increase discoverability for creators, encourage collaboration between creators and elevate the overall viewing experience,” Facebook explains. In short, streaming the same game alongside someone else is mutually beneficial. Actually starting a stream involves tagging up to three other creators during stream setup or after you’re live. If the other creators tag you back, then your audience is launched into a “co-streaming viewer experience,” according to Facebook. Besides being a method to introduce creators to each other and their audiences, co-streams also allow viewers to see the same game from different perspectives.
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Both Twitch and Facebook Gaming viewership blossomed during the pandemic, with Facebook Gaming up 82 percent year over year in terms of hours of watch time. Adding co-streaming and not requiring streamers to go through the time-consuming process of becoming a partner — Facebook’s process is known to be somewhat grueling — could help make Facebook’s platform grow even more appealing. Hopefully, co-streaming makes the prospect of building an audience that much easier, too.
