‘Minecraft’ partners with Twitch for built-in streaming

The 13 million people who play Minecraft on PC will soon have an easier way to share their in-game experiences. Today at the Minecon convention in Orlando, developer Mojang and streaming service Twitch announced a new partnership that will allow players to stream content on Twitch directly from in the game. The new feature will be available in both the Windows and Mac versions of the game, and though no specific date was announced, Twitch says to expect in-game streaming soon. “Minecraft has struck a very powerful chord with the Twitch community,” says Twitch’s marketing VP Matthew DiPietro.

Twitch has quickly become the leading game streaming service on the web, thanks in large part to the popularity of competitive games, or esports, like League of Legends and Starcraft. But while that remains the service’s biggest draw, Twitch has also seen success with less obvious types of game streaming, such as players broadcasting speedruns. It’s also being baked into next generation consoles, with Twitch services available on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Even without the built-in functionality, Minecraft is one of the more popular games on Twitch, and the company only expects that popularity to grow once the new feature is rolled out. “Expect a watershed moment for both players and spectators once the ability to easily broadcast gameplay directly to Twitch goes live,” DiPietro explains.