Twitch, American online live streaming platform where users can watch video game footage. Founded in 2011, Twitch has become the largest video game streaming platform in the world, having an average of 31 million visitors daily. Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon, which bought the platform in August 2014 for $970 million. Twitch’s main headquarters are in San Francisco.
Twitch’s predecessor was a start-up founded by entrepreneur and Web developer Justin Kan in 2007 after he had recently graduated from Yale University. The service was named Justin.tv after the founder, who, with the help of friends Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt, began to stream his life nonstop, hoping to imitate a Big Brother-style reality show. Justin.tv expanded over the next year to allow anyone with an adequate setup to live stream on the site. By 2008 Justin.tv had accumulated 1 million registered users. Content on the website was divided into categories, including one for video games. Gaming soon eclipsed the lifestyle content on Justin.tv, pushing its owners, by then just Kan and Shear, to create a spinoff site called Twitch, which officially launched in June 2011.
Twitch operated on the premise that anyone could live stream if they had the requisite hardware and could operate the site’s software. These “streamers,” as they would come to be called, could become site partners if they were successful enough and, in turn, earn revenue through advertising. The platform was an instant hit. By 2014 Twitch, supported by over $35 million in venture capital investment, was profitable, had established its headquarters in San Francisco’s financial district, and had over 100 employees. That same year the site commanded 1.8 percent of peak Internet traffic in the United States, behind only Netflix, Google, and Apple. (Kan shut down Justin.tv in 2014, aiming to focus on Twitch.)
In May 2014 Google attempted to acquire Twitch for $1 billion. Amazon entered a $970 million bid in August of the same year, citing its desire to enter the video game broadcasting industry. Twitch’s leaders opted for Amazon, believing the e-commerce giant would offer the streaming site more autonomy. They also felt that, because Google owned the video-sharing platform YouTube, Twitch would be forced into a secondary role. It was later reported that Google had dropped out of the deal over concerns about antitrust laws.
In 2016 Twitch added a feature that allowed viewers to purchase “Bits,” which they could in turn give to streamers. That same year the company introduced an automated chat moderation tool that filtered out abusive content. Twitch had long had a “Partner Program” that prevented its most successful steamers from broadcasting their content on other websites, but Twitch abandoned the exclusivity agreement in 2022. The site operated under Shear until he stepped down as chief executive officer in March 2023 and was replaced by longtime Twitch president Dan Clancy.
Twitch has more than 7 million unique active streamers as of 2023. Individual streams are differentiated by the video game being streamed, though there are alternate categories for live-action chat and tabletop game streams. The home page presents site visitors with a selection of featured streams and short clips from recorded streams. Each stream has a live-chat function, in which viewers may communicate using a variety of animated icons, or “emotes.” Twitch earns revenue in multiple ways. Advertisements are the first and primary source of revenue. Twitch also takes a portion from subscriptions and Bits donations.
Twitch is a common venue for esports competitions in games such as League of Legends and Dota 2, which remain two of the most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games on the site. These tournaments bring in millions of viewers. Twitch has also integrated professional sports onto its platform. For example, the NBA G League regularly broadcasts games on the site. Twitch hosts a number of charity streams as well; in 2020 alone streamers raised more than $80 million for various charities. Twitch’s popularity is showcased at TwitchCon, an annual gathering of streamers and viewers that attracts tens of thousands of attendees.