Stream Broadcasting
Steam Broadcasting–I’m already confused in the mouth with “Steam Stream,” so it’s for the best–is now in beta (you’ll need to opt in if you haven’t).
From your friends list or a friend’s profile page, all you need to hit is “watch game” and you can start peeping on your pal Tom. For Tom’s part, there is no broadcast to set up in any way; once someone starts watching, you start broadcasting.
Of course, there are different levels of privacy settings if you don’t want people creeping from, “Only friends I invite [can watch my games]” to “Friends can request to watch my games” to friends being able to watch at will to anyone being allowed to watch at will.
Not sure how much this will eat away at Twitch’s dedicated landing pages and, uh, not-needing-to-be-watching-through-Steam-ness, but the PS4 has shown that more people will take to streaming when the barrier to entry lowers, even if this (right now) seems to be working on a more local level, rather than “broadcast to the world and try to become famous.” I’m sure people will turn it into that soon.
