Twitch goes to the movies

We missed this amid the hubbub of CES, but apropos our Wednesday post Twitch has begun experimenting with live movie screenings on its platform through a partnership with Devolver Digital. Each Friday through February 20th Twitch will host a screening of a game-related movie, along with a live chat with the filmmaker on its main channel.

twitch_logo3The series kicked off January 9th with an airing of “Stream Dream,” a documentary about the growing impact of game streamers like Pew Die Pie, Smosh and Angry Joe. Today’s feature, at 2:15 PST, will be “Pixel Poetry,” a documentary on the artistry of games.

 “Twitch represents a new frontier for filmmakers looking to connect with an audience who is passionate about video game culture,” Twitch director of content marketing Ben Goldhaber said in a blog post. “Devolver Digital is the perfect example of a studio who understands the appeal of Twitch’s social video format by both documenting our brand in Stream Dream and scheduling broadcasts of half a dozen gaming films on our platform.”

While still catering to its core audience of gamers, the move suggests Amazon has ambitions to grow Twitch into a more broad-based live-streaming platform featuring a wider gamut of content besides game play. It might also help Twitch begin to attract advertisers from outside the game industry looking to target the core gamer demographic.