Amazon just bought a company that's like Skype for gaming
Amazon-owned video game streaming giant Twitch just bought a gaming company that you may not know, but that millions of eSports fans the world over know intimately: Curse, Inc.
The company's biggest success in recent years is a service called Curse Voice, which lets players chat with each other while playing online games like "League of Legends" - one of the most popular, heavily-played games in the world.
Think of Curse Voice like Skype for gaming: Players can easily get in touch and speak with each other over the internet.
The service is so integral to "League of Legends" that the game's developer, Riot Games, invested $30 million in the Alabama-based Curse back in 2015.
Curse does much more than voice chat - it does everything from editorial/video content production to gaming databases to game mod management - and it looks like Twitch is looking to integrate all of Curse's services into its widely-used video streaming platform.
Culturally, it's a logical fit. Several games that people use Curse services with are games that dominate Twitch's most-streamed games list. And for Amazon - which now owns game-streaming service Twitch, game developer Double Helix Games, and Curse - the company logically fits into a growing portfolio of gaming investments that focus on a new generation of gamers.
There's not much in the way of details about the deal. Here's Twitch CEO Emmett Shear on what the deal means for the future of both Twitch and Curse:
"We've long been fans of Curse, which is an innovator in the games industry with a strong culture built around its offerings-from Curse Voice and Curse Client to Gamepedia. While it's still early days for Twitch and Curse, we're kindred spirits in many ways and are looking forward to working together to enhance our users' gaming experience."