Amazon’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube have been the two biggest players in game video content for several years, and while rival services like Azubu, Inc. have tried to steal some of their livestreaming audience, nothing has posed a serious risk to the two platforms until now.

Facebook Live has a built in audience of something like 1.09 billion daily users, and the service is about to get a massive boost in video game content thanks to a new deal with Blizzard Entertainment, the studio behind incredibly popular games like Overwatch, Hearthstone, and World of Warcraft.

Later this month, Blizzard will be adding full Facebook login and Facebook Live integration to its Battle.net game client, which is used to launch all of its games. This will allow players to easily stream their games to their friends through Facebook Live.

“Blizzard games are best when played with friends, so it’s important to us to provide our players with features and services that make it easy and fun to share their experiences with each other,” said Gio Hunt, executive vice president of corporate operations at Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re working closely with Facebook on this integration for Overwatch, as well as our other games, and we look forward to sharing further details on our plans as development progresses.”

What does this mean for players?

In a release, Blizzard said that the new Facebook integration “will pave the way for new social functionality in Blizzard games,” but it did not elaborate on what exactly that functionality will include.

One possibility that would likely be well received by players would be the ability to easily invite Facebook friends to join their groups in games like Overwatch. Currently, the only way to add friends in the Battle.net client is to get their unique battletag, which is made up of a screen name followed by a four-digit code. Being able to circumvent battletags would be an incredibly useful way to start playing Blizzard games with friends.

Another feature that could be incredibly popular would be an easy way to share a Highlight or Play of the Game from Overwatch directly to a player’s Facebook feed. These are short clips of skillful gameplay that are already social media hits on sites like Reddit, where the /r/Overwatch subreddit recently managed to surpass Reddit frontpage traffic for a time.

Should Amazon or Google worry?

Facebook Live integration will certainly make it easier for players to share their game streams with friends, but Amazon and Google probably do not need to start sweating just yet.

After all, the most-viewed content on Twitch and YouTube come from popular channels where users make a living creating game video content thanks to subscriptions, donations, and ad revenue. Facebook may have the advantage of ease of use and a massive user base, but it lacks the same sort of monetization that makes Twitch and YouTube attractive to professional content creators.

Of course, that could quickly change if Facebook thinks that game streaming could be a valuable component of Facebook Live, and Amazon and Google could have a tough fight on their hands if that ever happens.

Image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment