If you haven’t read this piece on Polygon on the origins and rise of the Twitch streaming service, you owe it to yourself to give it a spin.

Developers are now using Twitch to show their games to the public before they’re completed. Publishers are using Twitch as a marketing tool to speak directly to consumers, and users are creating their own form of entertainment and breathing new life into games that launched years ago.

Twitch is a certified phenomenon, and it’s doing a great job making inroads into allowing just about anyone to broadcast their gameplay. I stream on Twitch sometimes, and you can find my channel here.

It was a great service before, and that’s only being augmented by recent increases in its accessibility.