Twitch is no longer just a place to watch people play video games — it's also a place to buy them.
The Amazon-owned livestreaming service has rolled out the ability to instantly purchase some of the games you spend hours binge watching, starting with roughly 50 titles that includes such heavy hitters as For Honor and Batman: The Telltale Series. Doing so will get you some extra digital goodies you can use on Twitch, while partnered streamers will get a 5 percent revenue cut of any games bought from their channels.
To buy a game on Twitch, simply open up a stream of one of the supported games, or go to that game's hub page (you can view a list of buyable titles here). From there, you'll just have to click on the big purple buy button and then log in to your Amazon account.
Finally, to finish the transaction, you just have to connect your account to that game's respective client. For example, Ubisoft games like Ghost Recon: Wildlands require a Uplay account, while titles such as The Walking Dead require the Twitch desktop app. To access your purchased games, simply open up the app that it's tied to.
Spending $4.99 or more on games or in-game content on Twitch will get you a "Twitch Crate," which contains a random batch of digital items, including chat emotes, username badges and some Bits currency that you can use to support your favorite streamers.
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Twitch's game-selling service is currently limited to PC titles, and there are plenty of big triple-A games we'd like to see added to the list. Still, with an initial batch of games that includes big hits like Watch Dogs 2, Minecraft: Story Mode and popular indies like Axiom Verge and Firewatch, the company's first attempt at being a games marketplace is off to a solid start.
Of course, we'll have to see if this service encourages streamers to broadcast games they wouldn't normally play, simply to get some of that sweet revenue money. But considering how many people use Twitch as a resource for deciding what games to buy, having the option to do so without leaving your stream is a nice extra touch — especially since you'll also have the satisfaction of supporting your favorite broadcaster in the process.
