New changes in American legislation are designed to toughen penalties for illegal streaming of content (including video games). Now violators can face up to 10 years in prison. Against this background, many began to worry that streamers would face criminal prosecution.This became known from the new amendments to the Law on Consolidated Appropriations for 2021, which provides government funding for federal projects and institutions.

Huya and DouYu companies, which are the largest players in the Chinese gaming streaming market, have announced a merger. Under the leadership of Tencent, they will create an analogue of Twitch with a total valuation of $ 10 billion.The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2021.

Apple has announced changes to the list of App Store rules. Now streaming services like Microsoft xCloud, Google Stadia and Nvidia GeForce Now can formally appear in the store. However, there were some pitfalls.

Tencent is preparing to launch the Trovo streaming platform. This is a service similar to Twitch, but focused on mobile, Bloomberg reports.

In August, the popular Ninja streamer preferred Mixer to the more popular Twitch platform. The estimated amount of his deal with Mixer became known — $ 20-30 million.

Over the past year, Facebook Gaming has strengthened its position in the gaming streaming market. By the end of December, the site’s share in this segment reached 8.5%.

More than 16% of Russians like to watch game streams. Twitch turned out to be the most popular platform for viewing them.

YouTube Live presents an increasingly serious competition for Twitch. This is the conclusion reached by Newzoo and Streamlab analysts, comparing the performance of the largest streaming platforms for the first quarter of the year.

Exactly how violators of these rules will be punished is not yet clear.

Take-Two shares Capcom and Ubisoft’s interest in the cloud streaming market, but does not yet see a business model suitable for publishers on it.

Valve has officially introduced a streaming platform Steam.tv Currently, the platform broadcasts only the games of the annual 2018 Dota 2 International Championship, which is taking place these days in Vancouver.

Ubisoft CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot predicted the end of the console race in the foreseeable future. He believes that the next generation of gaming platforms will be the last, and then the gaming industry will completely switch to streaming games from cloud servers.

Owners of Apple mobile devices will not be able to play titles from the Steam library on them through the Steam Link streaming application. Apple has not allowed Valve to place the Steam Link in the App Store, according to the publication Venture Beat.

Electronic Arts Corporation acquired the Israeli division of GameFly for an undisclosed amount. Under the terms of the deal, EA received technical resources and personnel to maintain the streaming platform.

Steam expands the possibilities for remote playback of games and videos. From the second half of May, users of the Valve platform will be able to play titles and watch videos from their libraries on mobile devices through the Steam Link and Steam Video applications.

The analytical company Newzoo compared the performance of the largest streaming platforms Twitch and YouTube Gaming in the 1st quarter of 2018. Twitch leads by a margin in the main parameters, but in some indicators YouTube Gaming is catching up and even overtaking its competitor.

Chinese IT giant Tencent has invested over $1 billion in local streaming platforms Douyu and Huya. In one day Douyu received $634 million, and Huya — $461 million.

Microsoft’s Mixer streaming service has an opportunity to buy a game or an add-on while watching its broadcast through the Mixer Direct Purchase function.