Twitch is one of the most known live streaming videos platform. Recently it announced a prime membership!
So let’s find out some unknown facts and trivia about it!
- Twitch is a live streaming video platform owned by Twitch Interactive
- A subsidiary of Amazon
- Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform, Justin.tv
- The site primarily focuses on video game live streaming
- Including broadcasts of eSports competitions
- In addition to music broadcasts, creative content, and more recently, “in real life” streams
- Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand
- The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of its general-interest counterpart
- In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers
- 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
- This happened to represent the shift in focus
- Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014
- That month, the service was acquired by Amazon for US$970 million
- It later led to the introduction of synergies with the company’s subscription service Amazon Prime
- Twitch later acquired Curse
- An operator of online video gaming communities
- It introduced means to purchase games through links on streams along with a program allowing streamers to receive commissions on the sales of games that they play
- By 2015, Twitch had more than 1.5 million broadcasters
- And 100 million viewers per month
- As of Q3 2017, Twitch remained the leading live streaming video service for video games in the US
- It had an advantage over YouTube Gaming
- As of May 2018, it had 2.2 million broadcasters monthly
- Nearly 15 million daily active users
- With around a million average concurrent users
- Furthermore, it had over 27,000 Twitch partner channels
- On August 25, 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch Interactive for US$970 million
- Sources reported that the rumoured Google deal had fallen through and allowed Amazon to make the bid
- Forbes reported 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
- It made a windfall of $22 million
- Twitch is now operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com
- Emmett Shear remaining as CEO
- Shear touted the Amazon Web Services platform as an “attractive” aspect of the deal
- The purchase of Twitch marked the third recent video gaming–oriented acquisition by Amazon
- It had previously acquired the developers Reflexive Entertainment and Double Helix Games
- Twitch and Blizzard Entertainment signed a two-year deal in June 2017
- To make Twitch be the exclusive streaming broadcaster of select Blizzard eSports championship events
- With viewers under Twitch Prime earning special rewards in various Blizzard games
- Twitch also reached a deal in 2018 to be the streaming partner of the Overwatch League
- The site also offering an “All-Access Pass” with exclusive content, emotes, and in-game items for Overwatch
- 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
- 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
- Users retain access to their purchased games
- Broadcasters on Twitch often host streams promoting and raising money towards charity
- By 2013, the website has hosted events which, in total, raised over US$8 million in donations for charitable causes, such as Extra Life 2013
- As of 2017 the website has raised over US$75 million in donations for charitable causes
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