Google Inc has been eyeing Twitch’s success with gamers for some time now, and for a short time the company was rumored to be interested in buying Twitch. Those rumors ended last August when Twitch was purchased by Amazon Inc instead for around $970 million. Google’s own YouTube has an enormous gamer audience, and now the video site will be launching a new gaming service with a heavy livestreaming focus called YouTube Gaming.

Google unveiled the platform at an event held today at YouTube Space LA, followed shortly by an official blog post announcing YouTube Gaming.

Product Manager Alan Joyce wrote:

On YouTube, gaming has spawned entirely new genres of videos, from let’s plays, walkthroughs, and speedruns to cooking and music videos. Now, it’s our turn to return the favor with something built just for gamers.

This summer, we’ll launch YouTube Gaming, a brand new app and website to keep you connected to the games, players, and culture that matter to you, with videos, live streams, and the biggest community of gamers on the web—all in one place.

Just as YouTube Kids created a walled off corner of YouTube with a dedicated app, YouTube Gaming will offer users a games-only platform with its own standalone app.

As part of the new service, YouTube is retooling its livestreaming platform to be easier to use and more in line with the way gamers create and consume live content.

Joyce wrote:

Live streams bring the gaming community closer together, so we’ve put them front-and-center on the YouTube Gaming homepage. And in the coming weeks, we’ll launch an improved live experience that makes it simpler to broadcast your gameplay to YouTube. On top of existing features like high frame rate streaming at 60fps, DVR, and automatically converting your stream into a YouTube video, we’re redesigning our system so that you no longer need to schedule a live event ahead of time. We’re also creating single link you can share for all your streams.

YouTube Gaming is set to launch later this summer, and the site plans on revealing more details in the coming weeks.

Screenshot via YouTube Gaming