In video games, spectating is the new advertising

A study released Wednesday by live streaming company Twitch attributed 25 percent of sales of releases like the fighting simulator "Punch Club" and the kill-or-be-killed multiplayer game "The Culling" to those games being played on Twitch.

"There's a clear relationship between viewing and purchasing behavior," said Twitch data scientist Danny Hernandez, who studied users who connected their Twitch account to online game retailer Steam for increased social interaction.

The government said Warner Bros. hired YouTubers such as Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg, who boasts over 46 million subscribers, through an advertising agency and instructed them to publish the sponsorship disclosure where consumers couldn't easily spot it.

The interactive industry tracker Newzoo said in a February report that over 470 million gamers watch online gaming content on a regular basis and that number is expected to surpass 500 million viewers in 2016.

For the end of every match, they created an instant replay feature that shows strands of different colored lines to illustrate where players had moved.

The social media giant partnered earlier this summer with "Overwatch" and "Call of Duty" publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. to broadcast live games and e-sports events on the social network.