Twitch is continuing its push into social media, announcing Thursday that it will rebrand the Curse app, a communication hub for the gaming community, as an extension of Twitch.
The move seems part of a bigger push by Twitch to connect its streamers and followers. Earlier this week, the company announced Pulse, a Facebook knock-off, to encourage people to share content, even when streamers are offline. The new Twitch Desktop App expands upon that with features such as video and voice messaging.
The app rebrands Curse, which Twitch acquired in 2016, and will keep all of the features that Curse developed, such as screen sharing and community servers, and add new features from Twitch. Whispers, for example, is a private chat messaging service that will work with the Twitch platform and desktop app.
It will also be bolstered by an in-app game library. Last month, the Amazon-owned company announced plans to sell games directly from its site. When the service launches this spring, the desktop game library will store these purchases.
Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said in a press release that the goal of the new, enhanced app is to create a one-stop-shop for its users.
“Since the Twitch community thrives on building solid and meaningful connections with each other, we have been hard at work building products that address this need,” Shear said.
The Twitch Desktop App will launch as a public beta next week, and will be available to download here.
