With the recent death of Mixer, gamers are going to be looking for new places to go besides Twitch and Facebook Gaming. They may soon have another option — it looks like Spotify Gaming may be launching at some point in the future, although we’re still not entirely sure that it’s real.
We got our first hints of this potential upcoming service thanks to a tweet from Elgato Gaming’s Senior Partnerships Manager Miguel Lozada. That tweet highlighted the existence of @SpotifyGames, an unverified Twitter account with a rather strange link in its bio.
The bio link is listed as spotify.com/gaming, which in turn redirects to spotify-gaming.com. Both the Spotify domain and the Spotify Gaming domain have identical registration information, suggesting that this might actually be a real initiative from the popular music-streaming site. Furthermore, the Twitter account is registered to an address that further indicates it may be real.
We’ve reached out to the address suspected to be associated with this Twitter account and it appears to have gone through. Between all of these tiny pieces of evidence, Spotify Gaming may indeed be coming soon.
However, not everyone agrees that this is a real service. Noted esports consultant Rod “Slasher” Breslau disagrees with the veracity of this account.
the Spotify Gaming twitter isn't real and Brime is a rando streaming startup by some kid. you people are goldfish
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) June 29, 2020
The closure of Mixer has led to an agreement where streamers and viewers would migrate to Facebook Gaming. However, streamers currently under contracts with Microsoft’s depreciating service had the option to decide whether or not they would make the move to Facebook’s game streaming service. According to esports journalist Richard Lewis, both Ninja and Shroud have opted out of continuing their contracts at Facebook gaming, effectively making them free agents.
Furthermore, Dr Disrespect has recently had his Twitch account suspended and all of his subscriptions refunded; the sudden disappearance of one of Twitch’s most popular streamers under mysterious circumstances might be an indication that he’s making a move to Spotify Gaming.
Spotify, for its part, has recently signaled increased interest in video streaming with its acquisition of the Joe Rogan podcast. The entire Joe Rogan Experience podcast archive will be made available on Spotify and all future episodes will debut in a video format on the website starting on September 1, 2020.
There is, of course, still the chance that this is somehow an elaborate hoax; it’s possible that someone managed to create a Twitter account with a domain name similar in appearance and pointed it towards a dead domain at Spotify’s website. As always, take such rumors with a grain of salt. If it is real, though, it could certainly shake up the world of game streaming.
