This article was originally published on 08/08/2019
Most gamers have been there: You’re playing Fortnite or some other popular title and you do something amazing — a crazy trick shot or a head shot — and you want to record it in the moment, but can’t because you’re in the middle of a game. For streamers this part of the gaming industry is something that can be extremely frustrating. They’re creating great content while they’re playing, but can’t capture those moments and post them to social media or chat platforms as they happen. This is where Streambeing comes in.
The AI powered Twitch bot allows streamers to capture their content as it happens, giving them more control over how they store and distribute their game footage. Here’s how it works: A streamer sees a moment they want to capture while playing. They tell Siri to “clip it,” and the Streambeing app will record the last 30 seconds of their play time. This clip is then shared to social media, chat platforms like Discord, and can be saved to Google Drive or Dropbox. It also creates a shareable link that a streamer can post to their Twitch channel.
For a more detailed visual of how it works, here’s the app’s first user testing it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGHzZK6KHYo
It’s a simple concept, but one that Streambeing’s co-founder and CEO, Taseen Peterson says has the potential to change the landscape of how streamers take ownership of and control the content they’re creating.
“For most streamers. If you want to grow your stream, just like any other influencer, if you’re on snapchat or Instagram, it’s all about audience engagement. It’s all about leveraging your content to engage your audience and grow your following.”
Peterson points out that while content is the most important thing for any creator trying to raise their profile, it’s just not a simple process for streamers. They have to go back through hours of gameplay to find a moment and once they do, they have to create a social media post, a post for chat platforms, and then save it to their hard drives. This can eat up a lot of time and take streamers away from the thing they love to do — playing video games.
“How do we reduce the barriers of entry so that we can do this thing that we love and our users can do this thing that they love. Everything outside of gaming is just extra shit we have to do. And the extra stuff is not that fun.”
Peterson, who is based in New Jersey, came up with the idea for Streambeing with his brother Mark Peterson, an avid gamer and developer. He says as kids, the two would play classics like Mario Brothers, Spyhunter, and Rampage, and ponder on how they could turn their love for video games into something bigger.
“This was our introduction into technology, like a lot of people. Going back to Nintendo, that was our first computer and Super Mario Brothers was our first piece of software.”
The two started off creating an Esports learning platform — think Udemy or Coursera, but for video games — and noticed while building the curriculum how hard it was to actually acquire the content they were creating while gaming. Mark Peterson, a streamer for a pro team, developed the first iteration of Streambeing after having trouble saving his content.
At its core, Streambeing is an app that gives streamers more control over their content and the speed at which it’s marketed to their followers and the wider gaming community. Taseen Peterson says this is key for an industry that’s growing in popularity and is becoming a pathway to financial success for a lot of people.
“We’re at a place in gaming where as gamers we can monetize. We can build businesses off of it. And there’s this social aspect of it. Gaming is social, as well as just live streaming in itself.”
Right now the Streambeing app is only available to people who have an iPhone, but Peterson says they’re launching on Amazon Echo and Alexa in August and that they plan to be on all platforms by the end of 2019.
While gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, it’s one where a lot of innovation hasn’t happened yet. The Peterson brothers, with the help of their other partner and creative director Tiffon Turner, could be well on their way to helping shape what the future of Esports and the gaming industry as a whole looks like.
