Twitch is in for two days of pain. 🤕 The streaming service, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for $970 million, is now grappling with a boycott and talent poaching. RIP.
Two of Twitch’s top streamers announced that they’re leaving the platform today after signing exclusive deals with competitor YouTube Gaming. TimtheTatman and DrLupo shared news of their departures just hours apart. YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, welcomed the two creators on Twitter.
These two streamers may not be familiar to casual gamers or people who don’t use regularly use Twitch, but their departure represents the ongoing war for talent. The duopoly between Twitch and YouTube Gaming has only heated up since Microsoft’s Mixer exited the space.
Tomorrow, Twitch will get another slap in the face as millions of users boycott the site. According to organizers, Twitch has failed to intervene in hate campaigns which have targeted minorities and marginalized creators. Hundreds of streamers and thousands of viewers are planning to stay off the site for the day. 🙅
In April, Twitch indicated it would “punish users for certain harmful offline behavior.“ But this rigor has not been applied to scrutinizing bots and stream raiders.
While it’s unlikely that Amazon will see any material losses from the boycott (the company makes hundreds of billions each quarter), this is certainly a less-than-ideal situation. Twitch still leads the market in streaming, but YouTube’s competitive pocket of cash is cause for concern.
$AMZN rose 0.24% today.