Beginning Thursday, Twitch Prime subscribers will have access to five free video games per month through Free Games With Prime, a new program that offers Twitch Prime members access to free games, in addition to regular perks such as ad-free viewing and in-game exclusives. The service is positioned to compete with Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus.
According to Twitch, Free Games With Prime is a response to community support for the Twitch Prime Indie Amplifier program that kicked off last month. The community event is an attempt to support indie titles on Twitch’s popular streaming platform, which is usually dominated by AAA games like League of Legends and Hearthstone.
Twitch Prime members were invited to vote for one of eight independent titles through March 11. The winning game will be announced on March 15, and will then be given to Prime members for free. Twitch has now extended that gift to all eight titles over the next few months.
Twitch has just over 15 million daily active users, so it has a ways to go before outshining Xbox Live’s 59 million active users or PlayStation Plus’ roughly 27 million subscribers. Twitch declined to share its Prime membership figures with AListDaily, but Twitch Prime memberships are automatically granted to Amazon’s 90 million US Prime members, which includes one free subscription to any Twitch channel each month and discounts on new release box games on Amazon during the pre-order period or first two weeks following launch.
Despite its late start to the monthly game subscription industry, Twitch taps directly into the in-demand industry of game video content—worth an estimated $3.2 billion in 2017.
Free Games With Prime titles for March include Superhot, Shadow Tactics, Tales from Candlekeep, Oxenfree and Mr. Shifty.
