Twitter hired the former director of gaming content for YouTube, Rodrigo Velleso, in September. I don't think he left YouTube because the gaming business was doing poorly. He probably left because the job of launching the YouTube Gaming platform has now ended. The company is now in the expansion phase which he may not be interested in. Twitter is in the situation YouTube was in 2 years ago where it had gamers on its platform, but it wasn't fostering its relationship with them. The gaming industry is projected to make $92 billion this year which is more than the film and music industry combined. YouTube saw the success of Twitch and pounced on the opportunity to get a slice of the pie. Twitter is in a good situation with gaming as well. Most gamers who have a YouTube channel are also on Twitter. Twitter won't be trying to compete with YouTube or Twitch at first because Periscope is still a young platform. Instead it will simply try to drive engagement and development of content on Twitter. If Twitter actually makes an effort to forge relationships with gamers, it can be successful. This hire signals an effort will be made. Periscope could have some sort of integration with gaming content, since it is a live service itself. At the very least, I expect Periscope to integrate a tipping mechanism with hearts just like Twitch and YouNow have ways to earn the streamers money.