Many gamers are acutely aware of the impending launch of Google's new live-streaming service YouTube Gaming, which will go head-to-head with Amazon's recently acquired Twitch.tv. After the last few months of beta testing, YouTube Gaming is finally set to leave beta later today to allow users from almost anywhere in the world to broadcast their own gameplay footage live to anybody who would like to watch. Google has just released the Android app, which serves as the guide and viewer for live shows and much of the recorded gaming content on YouTube. As usual, we've got the apk available for download, which may come in very handy since the Play Store will initially limit availability to residents of the US and UK. [Update: It seems availability isn't really limited after all, plenty of countries have access.]

What's New

For those who weren't invited to the beta and didn't download the "creator preview" release of the app, the Android experience for YouTube Gaming is currently centered on helping users find content to watch. It's basically a discovery and viewer app, for now. (More on that in a moment.)

If you've already tried out the app or read our hands-on post, there's really nothing too special to point out in v1.0. This release appears to be focused on fixing bugs and polishing up some wording and UI elements. Since this is the version that will go public later today, it's possible that more features and functionality will become available at that time.

Easter Egg

There is one new thing in this release that shouldn't be ignored. An Easter egg has been added. Tap on your profile picture at the top-right corner, then Settings. Enter the About screen and tap on the App version 5 times. This will rid the Action bar of its title and replace it with imagery of the classic game Asteroids. There doesn't seem to be any game or animation, just the visual, but it's still a cool homage to old-school gaming.

Teardown

Disclaimer: Teardowns are necessarily speculative and usually based on incomplete evidence. It's possible that the guesses made here are totally and completely wrong. There is always a chance that details may change or plans may be cancelled prior to the launch of a new feature discovered in a teardown. Much like rumors, nothing is certain until it's officially announced.

Screen Recording And Broadcasting From Android

As I mentioned above, the central roles of the YouTube Gaming app on Android appear to be discovery and consumption – that is to say, finding and watching videos. If you're actually looking to broadcast your game sessions (or other game-related video), you'll have to turn to opening the YouTube Gaming website on a computer. That's fine for PC games (and consoles with the right configuration), but it leaves most people without a good mechanism to live-stream their mobile gaming. Don't worry, Google doesn't plan to leave you out in the cold.

Buried beneath the somewhat atypical, yet totally Material-inspired interface of YouTube Gaming, there lies evidence that the app supports screen recording, and more importantly, live broadcasting. This will allow users to nab video of play sessions, record audio from both the game and their own commentary, and possibly even capture video of themselves while they play (the camera permission is there).

Judging by the strings, initiating a screencast begins by picking a single app to record, or allowing all apps to be a part of the session. Once activated, recording should continue until the user decides to end it. There are a couple of exceptions, like when there is no user input for a while, which will eventually timeout and shut down the session.

It's still not entirely clear if a live broadcast records a local copy, but that appears to be the case. If available storage on a device runs out, this can also end the session. There is a "health status" meter that gives some indication of how long a device can continue recording. There is also a power meter so you'll know if your battery starts getting too low.

Of course, once a screencast is going, there are a few other things broadcasters might want. It will be possible to toggle the front ("selfie") camera and microphone on or off to include commentary or a view of the player. The camera feed also offers special effects that can be applied to the video if desired. It seems like a live chat window with the viewers can also be enabled, but it's not clear whether it will be a part of the recording or not.

strings and activities

Naturally, there are also some images to go along with some of the dialogs that pop up, but they don't really give away any additional details. Still, they are cool to take a look at.

screencast_completion_banner and screencast_info_dialog_banner

screencast_type_dialog_banner and welcome_dialog_banner

final_warning_dialog_banner

There aren't any clear signs about when screencasting will be enabled for everybody. I believe there's enough code and resources to suggest it's ready to go now, but my guess is that we won't see it until it has been more extensively tested. On the other hand, it might become available in the next few hours as the service goes live. We'll find out shortly.

Download

The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.

File Name: com.google.android.apps.youtube.gaming-1.0.0.8-10000083-minAPI16.apk

Version: 1.0.0.8 (10000083)

Alternate Title: YouTube Gaming v1.0 Makes Me Twitch [APK Teardown + Rant]