Amazon rolls out new "live connector" feature to make in-game livestreaming easier

Amazon has announced the rollout of a new feature in its "Chime" software development kit that will let developers more easily implement video livestreaming in mobile games and games built as web apps.

Chime is Amazon's videoconferencing software (that competes with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which both expanded in use during the COVID-19 pandemic), and it looks like this new feature is meant to expand the use cases for the service.

The new feature is called "live connector," and developers can use it to implement features that would let players stream video to other platforms, or even to a platform within the app itself. Developers are also able to format video layouts and select and combine multiple video streams into a single stream. 

The feature also supports archiving streams for video on demand playback and archiving.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed that while the new addition to the Chime SDK is meant to support all app developers, there are specific use cases for people creating games. Implementing this feature in your game will make it easier for players to stream to platforms like YouTube or Twitch (which is owned by Amazon).

What's one of the neat ways to use this new feature? It's now easy for developers to stream footage to players within a mobile or web app. That means if your competitive mobile esports game is broadcasting a major tournament, you can set up a feature so that players can watch that tournament within the game's app.

A boon for the web app game space?

Competitive mobile games haven't quite exploded into the major esports broadcasting business as of yet, but it's interesting that Amazon carved out additional support for web app capabilities. There's a growing trend of developers making HTML5 web app games that are playable in browser.

In late 2021, developer Josh Wardle caught everyone's attention with Wordle, a web app-hosted game that would quickly be purchased by The New York Times. We also spoke with Google a few months ago about its new "Gamesnacks" platform that has since been folded into its mobile ads division.

Amazon's esports pitch doesn't sound like a good fit for any of those games, but if seamlessly accessing games via a browser window (on mobile or desktop) proves to be a profitable pitch, adding capabilities for streaming video may make for a good retention tool for developers working in the space.