Posted in: Activision, Blizzard, eSports, Games, Video Games, YouTube | Tagged: activision blizzard, call of duty, Call Of Duty League, eSports, google, overwatch, Overwatch League

Activision Blizzard & Google Announces Multi-Year "Strategic Relationship"

This week, Activision Blizzard announced that they had entered into a new multi-year "strategic relationship" with Google to power new player experiences. The main takeaways from the deal are that Google Cloud will serve as the preferred provider for Activision Blizzard's game hosting infrastructure, while YouTube will serve as its exclusive streaming partner. (Except for China). This includes all their live events going forwards including the Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone Esports, and more. This means those of you who were enjoying watching it on Twitch will now have to switch over to YouTube moving forward, starting with the inaugural CoD League launch this weekend. We have some quotes from all parties involved in the deal for you here.

We've worked closely with Activision Blizzard for the past few years across mobile titles to boost its analytics capabilities and overall player experience," said Sunil Rayan, Head of Gaming, Google Cloud. "We are excited to now expand our relationship and help power one of the largest and most renowned game developers in the world."

"We're excited to partner with Google to drive the next generation of gaming innovation for the industry. Google Cloud's best-in-class infrastructure gives us the confidence to deliver great entertainment to our fans around the world," said Jacques Erasmus, Chief Information Officer, Activision Blizzard.

"With more than 200 million gamers a day watching more than 50 billion hours of gaming content per year, YouTube provides gamers and their passionate fans with the most popular video gaming platform in the world," said Ryan Wyatt, Head of Gaming, YouTube. "Both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League are the quintessential examples of world class esports content. As a former Call of Duty esports commentator myself, I couldn't be more excited for Activision Blizzard to choose YouTube as its exclusive home for the digital live streaming of both leagues. This partnership further demonstrates our dedication to having a world class live streaming product for gaming."

"This is an exciting year for Activision Blizzard Esports as we head into the inaugural season of Call of Duty League and our first ever season of homestands for Overwatch League all around the world," said Pete Vlastelica, CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports. "It's our mission to deliver high-quality competitive entertainment that our fans can follow globally, live or on-demand, and to celebrate our players as the superstars that they are. This partnership will help us deliver on that promise at new levels, by combining our passionate communities of fans and players with YouTube's powerful content platform and exciting history of supporting next-generation entertainment."

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