热门GRE阅读背景材料 网络游戏与亚马逊能兼容并进吗？

Why Amazon is buying a video-game streaming site

亚马逊为何要购入一个流媒体视频游戏网站

ON OCTOBER 4th 2013, tens of thousands of gamers packed the Staples Centre in Los Angelesto watch SK Telecom T1 triumph over Royal Club in the annual finals of “League of Legends”, a team-based video game; 32m people watched the games live at some point, about 50% more than watch “Sunday Night Football”.But they did not watch on television. They used Twitch.tv, a website founded in 2011 thatstreams live video directly to users' computers.

2013年10月4日，成千上万的游戏玩家挤在洛杉矶的斯台普斯中心围观SK Telecom T1在团队视频游戏“英雄联盟”年度总决赛上击败了Royal Club;观看这场游戏竞赛直播的观众人数多达3200万人，这比观看“周日橄榄球之夜”的观众人数多了约50%。但他们没有用电视观看直播，而是使用Twitch.tv，一家在2011年建立的直接面向用户电脑的流媒体视频直播网站。

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On August 25th Amazon announced that it would buy Twitch for $970m, an indication of the growing importance of video-streaming websites. Amazon was not the only one interested: afew months ago Google had been rumoured to be on the verge of offering $1 billion for the firmas well.

在8月25日，亚马逊宣布其将花费9.7亿美元收购Twitch，这显示了流媒体视频网站日益增长的重要性。亚马逊并不是唯一一家对Twitch感兴趣的公司;数月前，有传闻说谷歌也差点想以10亿美元收购这家公司。

Video-streaming websites are not new. Twitch.tv was spun out of Justin.tv, a site set up in 2007 to allow Justin Kan, one of its founders, to broadcast his life to anyone who was interested. Soon, everyone could use it, letting them make television shows with nothing moreexpensive than a webcam and a computer.

流媒体视频网站并不是新事物。Twitch.tv是从Justin.tv独立出来的，而Justin.tv是在2007创立的，其创建者之一Justin Kan可以通过其传播他的生活点滴，任何对此感兴趣的人都可以订阅。不久后，每个人都可以使用这个网站制作发布他们各自的视频节目，且只用一个摄像头和一台电脑就能完成。

It is the combination of streaming and video games that has attracted Amazon's interest.Gaming became the most popular genre on Justin.tv, and Twitch was created to appeal toplayers. Viewers watch people play competitively, give advice on how to improve, or simply discuss anything that takes their fancy. The best streamers earn a comfortable living from advertising revenue and donations from fans.

流媒体和视频游戏的结合，是这一点引起了亚马逊的兴趣。游戏成了Justin.tv网站上最受欢迎的版块，创建Twitch就是为了吸引玩家。观众们观看这些玩家激烈的竞赛，获得如何提升游戏技巧的建议，或者只是谈论他们感兴趣的事。顶尖的视频网站玩家因有广告收入和粉丝的捐赠而可获得舒适的生活。

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In July Twitch attracted 55m viewers, who collectively watched 15 billion minutes of video. Thatwas enough to make it the biggest consumer of bandwidth inAmericaafter Netflix, Google andApple. The typical Twitch viewer spends almost two hours a day on the site, far more than onsites like Netflix or YouTube. That delights advertisers, as does Twitch's audience: mostly youngmen with plenty of disposable income.

在7月，Twitch吸引了5500万访问者，而这些访问者累计共观看了150亿分钟的视频。这足以使其成为美国继网飞、谷歌、苹果之后最大的带宽消费者。典型的Twitch订阅者每天会在此网站上花费近2小时，远远超过他们在Netflix或YouTube上花费的时间。这使得广告商们很是高兴，同样高兴的还有Twitch的订阅者—他们大都是有着大量可支配收入的年轻人。

Amazon's boss, Jeff Bezos, presumably thinks Twitch's breakneck growth will continue. He ispaying nearly four times what he forked out for the Washington Post in 2013. But he will needto tread carefully. Twitch's users like the site's free-and-easy feel.Some worry that absorption into the Amazonian mother ship may not be compatible with a laid-back atmosphere. But ifAmazon starts making changes, there is little to stop streamers and viewers defecting to rivalsites such as Hitbox.

亚马逊的总裁Jeff Bezos大概认为Twitch的高速增长将会持续。他收购Twitch的花费是2013年收购华盛顿邮报花费的近4倍。但是他需要谨慎行事。Twitch的用户喜爱的是该网站自由与轻松的感觉。有些人担心，Twitch与亚马逊母舰兼并的过程可能不会太轻松。但是如果亚马逊开始对Twitch的做出改变，就没有什么能阻止Twitch的视频发布者和订阅者转向Hitbox等竞争对手网站。