Twitch Acquired by Amazon

[Sledgstone 8,672]

In a surprising move, Amazon has purchased Twitch, beating out the looming Google / YouTube acquisition.

Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.

I personally want to thank you, each and every member of the Twitch community, for what you’ve created. Thank you for putting your faith in us. Thank you for sticking with us through growing pains and stumbles. Thank you for bringing your very best to us and sharing it with the world. Thank you, from a group of gamers who never dreamed they’d get to help shape the face of the industry that we love so much.

This should be a good move for twitch. Amazon definitely has the hardware to support the site.

Source: Twitch

Click here to view the article

[Eppy 3,446]

One explanation about google not getting it cause the FCC might not have allowed it due to them already owning Twitch's main competitor YT

[Sledgstone 8,672]

I could see that. I read another article that amazon is making no changes to twitch at this time and is letting them run independently for now.

[Sledgstone 8,672]

2 years later Amazon Prime is now integrated into twitch:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/30/13125824/twitch-prime-amazon-ad-free-game-discounts

Quote

Twitch Prime will also grant users one free channel subscription every 30 days, which tends to cost $4.99 per month. Shear said streamers who net new subscribers through this perk will still be paid out normally as if the channel subscription was purchased separately.

I don't use twitch except for when I was streaming some BF4 a couple years ago. I didn't know people had paid channels on twitch like youtube. I like the ad-free option, but most people use ad-block anyway. I guess this is a good deal for prime users.

https://twitch.amazon.com/prime

[Strider Hiryu 2,704]

People rake it a shit ton of money on Twitch and it's actually how a lot of youtubers make their money now ($5 a sub (well roughly $3 after Twitch's cut) rakes in pretty fast plus donations, you honestly make more money being a full time streamer then you do being a YT personality). I'm subscribed to a few people at the moment and if I actually used Amazon more I might actually look into this (just because I'd like to sub to Maimi0 but can't afford it atm and this would be a good way to do it). Honestly the ads on Twitch aren't all that bad and you can bypass them by using PS4's twitch app (for some reason it never plays ads except when you first log into the stream (even when the streamer puts ads up)) so going ad free isn't exactly worth it (plus the streamers get a cut of that ad money as well so you're screwing them by not watching ads).