Twitching gears
While the pandemic saw gamers flock to the streaming site to play — but, mostly, watch other people play — video games, Twitch has not been able to bring in enough revenue to cover its enormous costs in recent times.
Despite being acquired by Amazon in 2014 for a cool $970 million, the multi-channel network has run into several challenges over the past few years: struggling to monetize content to incentivize creators; failing to contain an increase in sexualized content; and withdrawing from the massive South Korean gamer market due to expensive network fees just last month.
As a result, the once-huge streamer is, according to CEO Dan Clancy, “[not] profitable at this point”, leading to the company laying off more than 500 employees on Wednesday morning — via one lengthy 6:00 am email.
