Competitive Gaming and eSports, is Live Streaming the next best thing?

There is so much data being processed, buffered, and so forth, now even more from online streaming, that being streaming from sites like Twitch.tv and YouTube. When asking for content in gaming there seems to be plenty of it and the exposure is not as difficult as it may seem. Some requirements for streaming: a decently top-notch computer system or PC, a microphone, Web Cam, and some type of scene capturing software (XSplit, etc.).

With the help of Moore's law (Moore's Law Wikipedia), more and more our computers are becoming able to handle multiple tasks asynchronously. So when we stream from a scene on one piece of software and need to manage something else on another process, the gaming continues without missing a beat.

What is even more helpful are voice channel and chat apps like Discord or Curse. There is general understanding in competitive gaming to use some type of software like this to help mitigate the confusion with creating strategies and discussing game successes  and failures. One could say the message is being broadcasted as fast as one can type, it is wholeheartedly easier to speak with someone that is apart of the gamer world, and is becoming more common place everyday. Gaming wants us to be social, even to the introvert, this could be helpful in communicating something they simply cannot constantly communicate at all times. Even for those of us that rather not heavily interact can view gaming on ESPN that presents larger tournaments or enjoy dedicated streams from their source.

Streaming is becoming more prevalent in modern technology and social media. Even Facebook has started using live streams in posts, though how this will help us in the future, is still yet to be known. At this point, this technology is creating another avenue to share and learn about each other on the net.

Additionally, Periscope is another alternative, allowing users to live stream from their mobile device. Now, Periscope (Periscope Producer) allows for streaming using professional equipment, which could be a competitor to Facebook's live API (TechCrunch on Periscope).

TechCrunch tells of an important event with Twitch, which reported it being acquired by Amazon in 2014:

"Our sources had previously suggested that the deal would close at nearly $1 billion dollars. We’re digging on the final price right this second, but are still hearing that it was very close to $1b. Update: Amazon confirms that the final price was $970M in cash"

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/25/amazon-will-officially-acquire-twitch/

Despite this, the Twitch Community remains strong and greatly supports their streamers.
TwitchCon recently announced  that service offers something similar to Amazon Prime called Twitch Prime. Twitch is growing and noticeably to a wide range of audiences. What is also salient, is Millennials being hip to this. Even if some of them are too young for the mature content on some streams, they know about it, and often are letting the adults know about it. To say Twitch is the next "cool thing" is a still debatable, as we yet to see a lot of competitors that offer a system solely for game streaming; YouTube offers game streaming though this is an entity within YouTube and not its' own separate service.

Also, Blizzard's Battle.net now offers streaming through their Battle.net app, and can post a live stream to Facebook with one or two clicks, or the use of hot-keys while in-game. Again, as gaming becomes more social, so does amount of data that is constantly be tunneled to viewers, and live streaming dispersing real-time data makes for some interesting things to learn about. Maybe we can learn something from this data as eSports and live streaming grows.