Twitch is going full-on American Idol—with a side of Guitar Hero.
The streaming giant, known as a hub for live gaming, on Friday announced its first singing competition, “Twitch Sings: Stream Star.” Entries are open and finalists will compete at TwitchCon Europe next month for $20,000 and lots of views.
The competition spotlights indie singers and serves to hype up its karaoke-style game, Twitch Sings, which the company said in a press release is in Beta testing.
Twitch says a driving factor in this venture is the untamed talent it’s seeing day-to-day on its servers. As Chief Marketing Officer Kate Jhaveri said in a press release: “There is so much talent on Twitch and the competition is a way for us to support the next wave of performers and make sure their talent is both rewarded and visible to a huge audience.”
Twitch will choose eight finalists who will compete head-to-head; the final four streamers fly to Europe for the final. The winner becomes immortalized as an avatar.
As for the singing game, Twitch says it comes loaded with more than 1,000 songs. It’s an interactive live experience, apparently, that reportedly allows viewers to request songs and send challenges. Audience participation is rewarded with onstage activations. It’s also reminiscent of defunct DJ chatroom Turntable.fm—only you sing instead of play records for the digital disco. (Again, the beta-mode game should kick live soon, Twitch says.)
Will people hang out online and watch amateurs sing on a stream? As CNBC noted last month, Twitch enjoys more than 300 million monthly streamers, and more streaming traffic than Hulu. It’s a safe bet.
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