Mobcrush aims to be Twitch for mobile, hires former Apple, Google, Xbox leads

While Mobcrush is still in beta, right now only letting people with a Mac and an iPhone stream live gameplay and commentary, that hasn't stopped them from going on a headhunting binge.

The company today announced that they've hired Apple App Store game lead Greg Essig and former Google Play games lead Koh Kim to co-lead Mobcrush's business development. The company also announced that in April they hired Eric Doty, a former Xbox strategist, as Mobcrush's Senior Director of Community and Content Partnerships.

The goal of Mobcrush is to eventually provide "one-click, multi-platform streaming which allows players to livestream gameplay sessions at the touch of a button, chat with their communities in real time, and save videos for future viewing and distribution."

The beta programs for Mobcrush's iOS and Mac OSX apps are now open to the public. A Mobcrush beta will be coming soon for both Android and Windows devices.

"Greg and I have always respected each other and believed in the engagement and reach of mobile," said Koh Kim, co-head of business development at Mobcrush, in a prepared statement.  "We've always wished we could work more closely together, and now are able to combine forces, pulling from both of our backgrounds to offer a unique expertise that spans the whole mobile space and will help creators and mobile game developers interact with their fans."

While still working to get out of beta, the nascent streaming platform has already managed to pull in some big numbers.

On July 23, a livestream of Supercell's Boom Beach pulled in more than 114,000 views. At its peak it reached 20,000 concurrents, wrapping up with a total of one million minutes of live gameplay viewed.

Eventually, I've been told, the app will allow people to play and stream live video of themselves from their mobile device, without the need for any other equipment — including a computer.

Currently, that's not the case, though getting started in the open beta is pretty easy and appears to support most iPhone games. I tried my hand at it earlier this week and was able to play a bit of Gameloft's Modern Combat 5 while using my laptop to stream a live video of myself chatting with viewers. The laptop app also showed me their live comments, so we could carry on a conversation.

I'm not sure how distracting the user-interface will be once it's only on a phone, especially with those comments, but with the laptop and phone set-up it was a lot of fun.

You can check it out yourself right here.