Twitch Acquires Gaming Database Website IGDB
IGDB exists to gather all relevant games information in once place, and now Twitch can use it to improve its own site search and discovery features.
If you want to look up the details of a particular video game, IGDB brings together all the relevant information in one place. Now Twitch owns IGDB and intends to use it to improve search results/ discoverability.
As TechCrunch reports, Twitch acquired the gaming-focused database in a bid to improve its own search capabilities and discovery features. IGDB has been around since 2015 and offers up everything you would ever want to know about a game in a one page summary. That includes, name, publisher, release date, genres, modes, themes, age rating, platforms, video trailers, storyline, reviews, credits, and recommendations for similar titles.
Speaking about the acquisition, a Twitch spokesperson explained, "Millions of people come to Twitch every day to find and connect with their favorite streamers and communities, and we want to make it easier for people to find what they're looking for … IGDB has developed a comprehensive gaming database, and we're excited to bring them on to help us more quickly improve and scale search and discovery on Twitch."
The good news for regular IGDB visitors is, Twitch has no intention of shutting down the website, only benefiting from the information it collects. Hopefully that view doesn't change within Twitch or at parent company Amazon. You may remember Amazon acquired a similar database website called IMDb back in 1998 and that continues to be online, which bodes well for IGDB long-term.
IGDB made money offering its API on a premium tier, but with the acquisition the API is remaining and switching to a new free tier for everyone. I suspect Twitch will quickly integrate the information gathered by IGDB into the company's new streaming app making it much easier for streamers to automatically categorize and promote their streams correctly.
Any video from Twitch you can always download the application.