Mobcrush took its iOS and OS X apps out of private beta today, opening the duo to all users of those platforms. The company intends to release a Windows app in the next few weeks, and an Android application will touch down before the end of summer.
As a company, the Santa Monica-based Mobcrush is a bet that mobile gaming will eventually have as large a spectator audience as desktop gaming. Livestreaming console and PC games, an oddity five years ago, has become a well-known content variety with millions of viewers tuning in to tournaments and individual players’ streams around the world
Initially, I was skeptical of Mobcrush’s thesis — can mobile games be as compelling as their desktop cousins? Mobcrush argued to TechCrunch that mobile games are becoming increasingly complex, and that many new gamers are mobile-first from the get go.
(You can snag the iOS app here, and the OS X app here.)
By taking its apps out of beta, Mobcrush is opening its platform to far more use, both from streamers and their fans. How quickly it can now grow, and especially so when its Windows app touches down, will help the us understand how nascent, or mature the mobile gaming market is.
Earlier this year, Mobcrush raised $4.9 million fund its operations.
According to a release, the company served 2 million minutes of watched content in June. Of all the vanity metrics, that might be the most vain, but it’s a stick we can use to measure future platform growth on Mobcrush.
Mobcrush likes to stress that its solution to stream mobile games is “one-click,” meaning that you can get up and running in short order. That might sound derivative — of course the product should be easy to use — but it’s also a repudiation of the earlier days of streaming PC games, when setting up you rig for the task was a notorious hassle. At least for the mobile gaming generation, that won’t be an issue.
I’ll check back in with the company in a quarter to see how quickly it can grow.