e-Commerce giant Amazon has agreed to buy the popular gamer website Twitch in an all-cash deal totaling 970 million dollars.

Reportedly, the deal, which outdid Google's pursuit of Twitch, is of $1.1 billion, when including retention-related payouts.

The takeover gives Amazon an extensive online forum of more than 55 million monthly active users. Online users discuss games or watch others as they play on the forum.

Amazon's chief executive officer Jeff Bezos has made video games his strategy in order to add more entertainment services.

Amazon operates a game studio in Seattle and has been attracting software developers to build more video game titles for its Fire Phone, Fire TV set-top box and Kindle Fire tablets.

The company is also spending on other media, including 100 million dollars to produce television shows to watch through Amazon's Instant Video service, a book-subscription plan and a music-streaming service. Moreover, the company has also made a deal with Time Warner Inc. to carry HBO shows.

According to James McQuivey, who is an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., as the e-Commerce retailer competes for customers' attention, the programming increases value for users of its Prime membership and various devices.

McQuivey further added that Twitch is very popular because of its engaged audience and gives Amazon several opportunities to sell advertising and to attract online customers to its store to buy a controller, game, or accessories.

Twitch is Amazon's second-biggest acquisition, following the 1.19 billion dollar purchase of Zappos.com Inc. in 2009.