Streaming Platform Beam Interactive Goes 2.0

Microsoft's streaming service Beam announced today version 2.0 of their platform. Focusing on streaming games, what differentiates Beam from competitors is their focus on interactivity and audience engagement, bringing streamer and audiences closer together.

Suitably, then, the new system is named Interactive 2, and it is the framework for a "flexible, extensible system that will drive Interactive experiences with Beam into the future."

Unfortunately the list of changes seems dreadfully technical, so I'll just paste them here:

Per-User Control Events - See who pushed a button enabling more engaging more personal interactivity.

• Dynamic Controls - Create new buttons and interactive elements on the fly from your game without needing to visit the Interactive Studio.
• Malleable Controls - Change the text and spark cost of a control on the fly to spice up the gameplay during a session.
• Groups - Group your players into Teams or collections to provide unique controls to different sets of users.
• Brand New WebGL Based Controls
• Set text & spark cost on the fly at any time.
• Easier to position and size for a wide variety of layouts and devices.
• Snazzy new control editor renamed to our Interactive Studio.
• A set of tools and processes to support you in authoring next generation interactive experience.
• Everything from initial creation to publishing is carefully crafted and delivered to support you in making the best possible Interactive experience.
• JSON Based Protocol - A human readable format that is easy to debug.
• New & Updated SDKs
• C++
• Unity / C#
• JavaScript

The first release of Interactive 2.0 arrives in March, with additional features and improvements planned throughout 2017. Beam is one of the platforms the GameGrin staff uses for our streamings, and quite a few of us prefer it's interface to Twitch. Let us know in the comments which platform you prefer.