Twitch (service)
Twitch is an American video live-streaming service popular in video games, including broadcasts of esports competitions. It also offers music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon. It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv.
Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch's homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games, fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters.
The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of Justin.tv. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers, and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth-largest source of peak Internet traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv's parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus when Justin.tv was getting shut down in August 2014. The same month, the service was acquired by Amazon for 970 million, which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company's subscription service Amazon Prime.
By 2015, Twitch had more than 100 million viewers per month. In 2017, Twitch remained the leading live-streaming video service for video games in the US, and had an advantage over YouTube Gaming, which shut down its standalone app in May 2019. it had three million broadcasters monthly and 15 million active users daily, with 1.4 million average concurrent users. Twitch had over 27,000 partner channels. Twitch was the 30th-most-visited website in the world with 23.46% of its traffic coming from the United States, followed by Russia with 8.87%, Germany with 7.08% and France with 6.26%. In late 2023, Twitch announced that they would stop operating in South Korea in 2024 because of its network fee policy, citing prohibitive costs.
History
Founding and initial growth (2007–2013)
When Justin.tv was launched in 2007 by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, two recent Yale graduates, the site was divided into several content categories. The gaming category grew especially fast, and became the most popular content on the site. In June 2011, the company decided to spin off the gaming content as TwitchTV, inspired by the term twitch gameplay. It launched officially in public beta on June 6, 2011. Since then, Twitch has attracted more than 35 million unique visitors a month. Twitch had about 80 employees in June 2013, which increased to 100 by December 2013. The company was headquartered in San Francisco's Financial District.Twitch has been supported by significant investments of venture capital, with in 2012, and in 2013. Investors during three rounds of fund raising leading up to the end of 2013 included Draper Associates, Bessemer Venture Partners and Thrive Capital. In addition to the influx of venture funding, it was believed in 2013 that the company had become profitable.
Especially since the shutdown of its direct competitor Own3d.tv in early 2013, Twitch has become the most popular e-sports streaming service by a large margin, leading some to conclude that the website has a "near monopoly on the market". Competing video services, such as YouTube and Dailymotion, began to increase the prominence of their gaming content to compete, but have had a much smaller impact so far. As of mid-2013, there were over 43 million viewers on Twitch monthly, with the average viewer watching an hour and a half a day. By February 2014, Twitch was the fourth largest source of Internet traffic during peak times in the United States, behind Netflix, Google, and Apple. Twitch made up 1.8% of total US Internet traffic during peak periods.
In late 2013, particularly due to increasing viewership, Twitch had issues with lag and low frame rates in Europe. Twitch has subsequently added new servers in the region. Also in order to address these problems, Twitch implemented a new video system shown to be more efficient than the previous system. Initially, the new video system was criticized by users because it caused a significant stream delay, interfering with broadcaster–viewer interaction. Twitch staff said that the increased delay was likely temporary and at the time, was an acceptable trade-off for the decrease in buffering.
Growth, YouTube acquisition speculation (2014)
On February 10, 2014, Twitch's parent company was renamed Twitch Interactive, reflecting the increased prominence of the service over Justin.tv as the company's main business. That same month, a stream known as Twitch Plays Pokémon, a crowdsourced attempt to play Pokémon Red using a system translating chat commands into game controls, went viral. By February 17, the channel reached over 6.5 million total views and averaged concurrent viewership between 60 and 70,000 viewers with at least 10% participating. Vice President of Marketing Matthew DiPietro praised the stream as "one more example of how video games have become a platform for entertainment and creativity that extends WAY beyond the original intent of the game creator. By merging a video game, live video and a participatory experience, the broadcaster has created an entertainment hybrid custom made for the Twitch community. This is a wonderful proof of concept that we hope to see more of in the future." Beginning with its 2014 edition, Twitch was made the official live-streaming platform of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.On May 18, 2014, Variety first reported that Google had reached a preliminary deal to acquire Twitch through its YouTube subsidiary for approximately.
On August 5, 2014, the original Justin.tv site suddenly ceased operations, citing a need to focus resources entirely on Twitch. On August 6, 2014, Twitch introduced an updated archive system, with multi-platform access to highlights from past broadcasts by a channel, higher quality video, increased server backups, and a new Video Manager interface for managing past broadcasts and compiling "highlights" from broadcasts that can also be exported to YouTube. Due to technological limitations and resource requirements, the new system contained several regressions; the option to archive complete broadcasts on an indefinite basis was removed, meaning that they can only be retained for a maximum of 14 days, or 60 for partners and Turbo subscribers. While compiled highlights can be archived indefinitely, they were limited to two hours in length. In addition, Twitch introduced a copyright fingerprinting system that would mute audio in archived clips if it detected a copyrighted song in the stream.
Amazon subsidiary (2014–present)
On August 25, 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch Interactive for in an all-cash deal. Sources reported that the rumoured Google deal had fallen through and allowed Amazon to make the bid, with Forbes reporting that Google had backed out of the deal due to potential antitrust concerns surrounding it and its existing ownership of YouTube. The acquisition closed on September 25, 2014. Take-Two Interactive, which owned a 2% stake at the time of the acquisition, made a windfall of $22 million.Under Amazon, Shear continued as chief executive officer of Twitch Interactive, with Sara Clemens added to the executive team as chief operating officer in January 2018. Shear touted the Amazon Web Services platform as an "attractive" aspect of the deal, and that Amazon had "built relationships with the big players in media", which could be used to the service's advantage—particularly in the realm of content licensing. The purchase of Twitch marked the third recent video gaming–oriented acquisition by Amazon, which had previously acquired the developers Reflexive Entertainment and Double Helix Games.
On December 9, 2014, Twitch announced it had acquired GoodGame Agency, an organisation that owns the esports teams Evil Geniuses and Alliance. In March 2015, Twitch reset all user passwords and disabled all connections to external Twitter and YouTube accounts after the service reported that someone had gained "unauthorised access" to the user information of some Twitch users.
In June 2016, Twitch added a new feature known as "Cheering", a special form of emoticon purchased as a microtransaction using an in-site currency known as "Bits". Bits are bought using Amazon Payments, and cheers act as donations to the channel. Users also earn badges within a channel based on how much they have cheered.
On August 1, 2016, it was reported that Twitch had signed a lease for 185,000 square feet in a new office tower to be constructed at 350 Bush Street in San Francisco.
On August 16, 2016, Twitch acquired Curse LLC, an operator of online video gaming communities and gaming-oriented VoIP software. In December 2016, GoodGame Agency was divested by Amazon to their respective members due to conflict of interest concerns. On September 30, 2016, Twitch announced Twitch Prime, a service which provides premium features that are exclusive to users who have an active Amazon Prime subscription. This included advertising-free streaming, monthly offers of free add-on content, and game discounts. Games included with the game loot rewards were Apex Legends, Legends of Runeterra, FIFA Ultimate Team, Teamfight Tactics, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Doom Eternal, and more.
In December 2016, Twitch announced a semi-automated chat moderation tool, which uses natural language processing and machine learning to set aside potentially unwanted content for human review. In February 2017, Twitch announced the Twitch Game Store, a digital distribution platform that would expose digital purchases of games within the site's browsing interface. When streaming games available on the store, partnered channels could display a referral link to purchase the game—receiving a 5% commission. Users also received a "Twitch Crate" on every purchase, which included Bits and a collection of random chat emotes.
In August 2017, Twitch announced it had acquired video indexing platform ClipMine.
On August 20, 2018, Twitch announced that it will no longer offer advertising-free access to the entire service to Amazon Prime subscribers, with this privilege requiring the separate "Twitch Turbo" subscription or an individual channel subscription. This privilege ended for new customers effective September 14, 2018, and for existing customers October 2018. In October 2018, Twitch announced Amazon Blacksmith, a new extension allowing broadcasters to configure displays of products associated with their streams with Amazon affiliate links. On November 27, 2018, Twitch discontinued the Game Store service, citing that it did not generate as much additional revenue for partners as they hoped, and new revenue opportunities such as Amazon Blacksmith. Users retain access to their purchased games. On December 12, 2018, Fandom, Inc. had reached an agreement to acquire Curse Media, a spin-off of Curse, from Twitch Interactive for an undisclosed amount. Curse was dissolved and its assets were moved under Twitch Interactive.
Twitch's new headquarters at 350 Bush Street opened in August 2019. To comply with historic preservation requirements, the developer kept the front facade of the San Francisco Curb Exchange, but tore down everything behind the facade, and built a reconstruction of the old trading hall through which visitors must walk to reach the modern high-rise office tower behind it.
Twitch acquired the Internet Games Database, a user-driven website similar in functionality to Internet Movie Database to catalog details of video games in September 2019. Twitch plans to use the database service to improve its own internal search features and help users find games they are interested in. On September 26, 2019, Twitch unveiled a new logo and updated site design. The design is accompanied by a new advertising campaign, "You're already one of us", which will seek to promote the platform's community members. Twitch began signing exclusivity deals with high-profile streamers in December 2019.
Twitch introduced a Safety Advisory Council in May 2020, made up from streamers, academics, and think tanks, with a goal to develop guidelines for moderation, work-life balance, and safeguarding the interests of marginalized communities for the platform. The announcement attracted controversy, and CEO Emmett Shear later clarified that the role of the council was purely advisory. On June 22, 2020, Twitch Interactive sold CurseForge to Overwolf for an undisclosed sum. In August 2020, Twitch Prime was renamed Prime Gaming, aligning it closer with the Amazon Prime family of services. In 2020, Twitch sold Union For Gamers to Magic Find.
In May 2021, Twitch announced that it would introduce over 350 new tags to categorize streams, including finer tags for gender identity, sexual identity, and disabilities, as well as tags for other types of themes. The disability and LGBT-oriented tags were developed in consultation with the video game accessibility charities AbleGamers and SpecialEffect, and the LGBT organizations GLAAD and The Trevor Project.
On October 6, 2021, an anonymous hacker reportedly leaked "the entirety" of Twitch, including its source code of the Twitch client and APIs, and details of the payouts made to almost 2.4 million streamers since August 2019. The user posted a 128GB torrent link to 4chan and said that the leak, which includes source code from almost 6,000 internal Git repositories, is also "part one" of a larger release. The leak also included details of plans for a digital storefront under the codename of "Vapor" meant to be a competitor to Steam along with details on payment received by streamers for their work on Twitch. Twitch verified they had suffered a data leak which they attributed to a server misconfiguration used by a "malicious third party". While Twitch found no indication of login credentials or credit card information to have been taken in the breach, the company reset all stream keys as a precaution.
On August 23, 2022, Twitch announced that it would no longer enforce its exclusivity agreement, allowing Twitch streamers to livestream on other streaming platforms. The announcement noted that simulcasting on Twitch and other "Twitch-like" streaming platforms was still prohibited; however, an exemption to the simulcasting restriction was applied to short-form streaming platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Despite the specific mention of restrictions on simulcasting, former Twitch employees noted that Twitch would likely not enforce the restriction, as doing so would be very difficult, and they had not been enforcing it for several months prior to the announcement. After the announcement, many high-profile streamers who were limited by exclusivity, such as Ninja and Pokimane, started streaming on other platforms.
On September 21, 2022, Twitch announced it would be reducing the subscription revenue earned by large streamers. Though most streamers get a 50% of revenue from subscriptions, some larger streamers have premium subscription terms, which give them 70% of subscription revenue. The new change, set to take effect on June 1, 2023, would mean premium streamers would keep 70% of the first $100,000 earned from subscriptions, after which their cut would be lowered to 50%. The announcement came after Twitch declined a popular request for all streamers to have 70% subscription revenue, which many noted is the same revenue already offered by YouTube. Twitch President Dan Clancy justified the change in a statement issued on Twitch's blog, stating it was done to cover Twitch's operating costs, noting the premium 70% split stopped being offered to new streamers over a year prior, and pointing to alternate streamer revenue sources that would not be affected by the subscription revenue reductions, such as Prime Subs or advertisement breaks. Though Clancy claimed 90% of streamers would not be affected by the revenue reduction, the change drew criticism from many streamers, who viewed it as harmful to the security of streaming careers and more beneficial to Twitch and its advertisers than their users, with several streamers expressing doubt at Clancy's claims of Twitch's high operating costs, and noting that Twitch already has alternative revenue sources that make reducing streamer revenue unnecessary. The announcement led to some streamers considering leaving Twitch or organizing boycotts.
In December 2022, Amazon Senior Vice President Jeff Blackburn retired and was replaced by Steve Boom as Vice President of Audio, Twitch, and Games. Twitch CEO Dan Clancy reports directly to Boom.
In March 2023, Clancy became CEO of Twitch, after previous CEO and Justin.tv co-founder Emmett Shear announced he would step down after 16 years at the company. Both Shear and Clancy have been described as "more product-focused than creator-focused". On March 20, Clancy announced that Twitch would be laying off 400 employees, as part of Amazon-wide layoffs affecting 9,000 workers across the company.
On June 6, 2023, Twitch announced restrictions on third-party sponsor placements in streams, including restricting the size of sponsor logos, and prohibiting "burned-in" audio, video, or display advertising. The changes were met with criticism from major streamers such as Asmongold, Cr1TiKaL, and Zentreya due to their broad wording, concerns that it would impact streamers' existing relationships with advertisers, and their impact on charity and esports events that rely extensively on sponsorship. The service quickly retracted the new branded content policy and announced that it would be clarified, stating that it was intended to "clarify our existing ads policy that was intended to prohibit third party ad networks from selling burned in video and display ads on Twitch, which is consistent with other services", and that Twitch " not intend to limit streamers' ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors."
In August 2023, Twitch began to trial a "Discovery Feed" feature in its mobile apps, populated by "featured" clips from followed users. In October 2023, Twitch began to implement stories. At TwitchCon 2023, Twitch announced upcoming updates to its Guest Star feature to allow for merged chat rooms, and that streamers under an affiliation or partnership agreement with the service would be allowed to simulcast their streams on competing platforms such as YouTube, as opposed to only mobile-centric video platforms.
On December 6, 2023, Twitch announced that it would exit the South Korea market effective February 27, 2024, citing the prohibitive costs of offering the service in the country. Due to demands from internet service providers that Twitch pay network access fees, Twitch restricted streams to 720p quality in September 2022, and blocked access to video-on-demand content in February 2023. Users in South Korea will no longer be allowed to monetize their streams, and will be offboarded from the affiliate and partnership programs. In February 2024, Twitch was additionally fined ₩435 million by the Korea Telecommunications Commission, deeming Twitch's degradation of service in the country to be unjustified and undermining the interests of users.
In January 2024, Twitch announced another mass layoff, affecting 500 employees or 35% of total staff, after previous layoffs in early 2023. The announcement came amid ongoing struggles and ensuing layoffs across the tech and digital media sectors.
In October 2024, Twitch's longtime head of music Cindy Charles died.