• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Amazon buys Twitch.tv for $970 million

Jodell88

Jodell88

Diamond Member
Amazon has officially purchased Twitch.tv for $970 million. In Twitch's announcement of the deal, CEO Emmett Shear repeatedly thanked the Twitch community for helping build the company, and that "with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch." The letter states that Twitch will be "keeping most everything the same," and that Twitch will remain independent from Amazon. Any big deal like this takes time, and according to Amazon's press release, the acquisition is expected to close in the second half of this year.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon gave a quote about the deal, saying “Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community.”


So what happened to the Google deal? A report from Forbes, Google was concerned about possible anti-trust problems that would arise from the deal, and Google and Twitch couldn't come to an agreement on the size of a breakup fee if the deal was killed.
Click to expand...
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/amazon-not-google-reportedly-buying-twitch-for-1-billion/
 
DesiPower said:
well, atleast its not a tax inversion... the burger king news was disturbing...
Click to expand...

Yeah. I'm surprised Ontario is actually considered a tax haven considering how many businesses are packing up and moving out to Alberta. Plus the ridiculous amount I pay each year on my meager earnings.

So I take it that from now on, Twitch will only be available in the United States, much like Instant Video and the MP3 store? Probably require a Prime subscription too. 😀
 
I don't understand the appeal of watching video game streaming, but may as well get that cash while it's on the table.
 
Would've preferred google. unlike Amazon, Google allows content access given the presence of advertisements. Amazon is more likely to move to strictly subscription based service. Add to that, having Youtube as a simultaneous streaming AND archiving platform can provide a good amount of synergy not found with Amazon.
 
loki8481 said:
I don't understand the appeal of watching video game streaming, but may as well get that cash while it's on the table.
Click to expand...

It helps build the community and for a lot of games, it is very similar to sports. The eSports aspect really helps. Streaming a competition that not everyone can attend is big business. Then, take into account players able to interact with people while playing at home, and you've got some appeal.

The best part is when a new game comes out you are interested in, but not enough to just blind buy, you can watch a real player playing it, not take the word of some paid reviewer.
 
Is Twitch.tv literally nothing more than a site where you can watch playthroughs of games? I heard about the 'Twitch plays Pokemon' thing when it happened but otherwise I've never seen this website mentioned. But maybe $970 million isn't that much by internet giant standards. :hmm:

smackababy said:
It helps build the community and for a lot of games, it is very similar to sports. The eSports aspect really helps. Streaming a competition that not everyone can attend is big business. Then, take into account players able to interact with people while playing at home, and you've got some appeal.

The best part is when a new game comes out you are interested in, but not enough to just blind buy, you can watch a real player playing it, not take the word of some paid reviewer.
Click to expand...

First point (streaming and competitive gaming) makes sense, but YouTube is already full of dudes with video game playthroughs (and most of them don't get *that* many hits, unless I'm really underestimating how much YouTube gets paid per view in ad money).
 
HamburgerBoy said:
Is Twitch.tv literally nothing more than a site where you can watch playthroughs of games? I heard about the 'Twitch plays Pokemon' thing when it happened but otherwise I've never seen this website mentioned. But maybe $970 million isn't that much by internet giant standards. :hmm:



First point (streaming and competitive gaming) makes sense, but YouTube is already full of dudes with video game playthroughs (and most of them don't get *that* many hits, unless I'm really underestimating how much YouTube gets paid per view in ad money).
Click to expand...

Twitch.tv is a streaming service. You can watch (and interact with via chat) a player while they actively play the game. This isn't something youtube offers (can't really ask questions or have them try a specific thing on an already recorded video).

You may not have heard about twitch.tv, however, there is pretty much always 100+ thousand people watching League of Legend streamers. Hearthstone is generally sitting around 25k at all times.
 
waggy said:
I gotta say i think the US needs to do something about BS like this
Click to expand...

they'll probably blame bush on it.even though it wasnt under a republican president that jobs were saying goodbye to the united states and moving overseas

perhaps when they wake up some day.and there arent enough people who can provide there welfare benefits they can see the reality of the "hope and change"they wanted so badly
 
loki8481 said:
I don't understand the appeal of watching video game streaming, but may as well get that cash while it's on the table.
Click to expand...

Esports is big in Korea and China, they show tournaments on television over there. It's only a matter of time until it's just as big in the U.S. Valve's last Dota tournament in the U.S. was a 5 million dollar payout. I believe first place received 2 million dollars. Everything was broadcasted on Twitch, which means Twitch is in a good place to capture the mainstream market in the U.S. when it happens.
 
Jay5 said:
they'll probably blame bush on it.even though it wasnt under a republican president that jobs were saying goodbye to the united states and moving overseas
Click to expand...

lol!

reagan.png


Isn't that your hero, though?
 
Many Youtubers use Twitch as well. If Twitch was turned into a Subscription service, I suspect they'd start using something else. I really don't think that Twitch could change it's format and maintain its' Content makers. Mainly because Game Streamers/video Content Makers need a high volume of viewers in order to succeed. Currently anybody with a decent Internet connection can watch Twitch, Subscriptions would shrink that to a miniscule fraction.
 
sandorski said:
Many Youtubers use Twitch as well. If Twitch was turned into a Subscription service, I suspect they'd start using something else. I really don't think that Twitch could change it's format and maintain its' Content makers. Mainly because Game Streamers/video Content Makers need a high volume of viewers in order to succeed. Currently anybody with a decent Internet connection can watch Twitch, Subscriptions would shrink that to a miniscule fraction.
Click to expand...

Twitch already offers per-channel subscriptions. Including options such as subscriber-only chat, as well as paywall VODs (in the past at least, probably not anymore) and well as quality level restrictions (e.g. HD only for subscribers). Depending on how you want to set it up and what you want to enable at any given time.
 
HamburgerBoy said:
First point (streaming and competitive gaming) makes sense, but YouTube is already full of dudes with video game playthroughs (and most of them don't get *that* many hits, unless I'm really underestimating how much YouTube gets paid per view in ad money).
Click to expand...

Achievement hunter would like to disagree. These guys have managed to make it their full time job.

they have 558,610,480 views on their youtube channel, which in just youtube revenue would be conservatively be $1.5M, and likely more, but the way youtube pays out is interesting sometimes so I wont speculate further. Being a part of roosterteeth also helps.
 
Last edited:
smackababy said:
Twitch.tv is a streaming service. You can watch (and interact with via chat) a player while they actively play the game. This isn't something youtube offers (can't really ask questions or have them try a specific thing on an already recorded video).

You may not have heard about twitch.tv, however, there is pretty much always 100+ thousand people watching League of Legend streamers. Hearthstone is generally sitting around 25k at all times.
Click to expand...

Pretty sure you can do that on Youtube now. Its why I was fairly baffled by the talk of them buying out Twitch (my best guess is they were trying to keep from losing a lot of the big name gaming people to Twitch), as it seemed to me that they had pretty much offered parity, and were paying out a lot more money in ad revenue. Most of the big Twitch people were people that had popular Youtube channels, so I didn't really get them trying to push people to a different site (since most of their money was thanks to the Youtube ad revenue), but then there were the channel payments and then there was the crackdown on gaming videos because of music licensing stuff.

Although I can't even fathom who would be paying random generally not terribly entertaining or interesting people, money to watch them play games. Basically Twitch turned into a way to double dip. They could get people to pay while they streamed, and then they could upload it to Youtube and get ad revenue.

Jay5 said:
they'll probably blame bush on it.even though it wasnt under a republican president that jobs were saying goodbye to the united states and moving overseas

perhaps when they wake up some day.and there arent enough people who can provide there welfare benefits they can see the reality of the "hope and change"they wanted so badly
Click to expand...

History lessons, you need them. Also, keep the dumb political trash out of threads that it has nothing to do with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top