Twitch shut down services in South Korea
Twitch has officially announced the closure of its services in South Korea starting from February 27, 2024, due to unsustainable operating costs in the country. Dan Clancy, the CEO of Twitch, shared this news through a post on the platform’s official blog, providing detailed explanations behind this challenging decision.
Despite previous efforts, such as the introduction of a peer-to-peer function and limiting video quality to 720p, the maintenance costs in South Korea remained excessively high, surpassing those of many other countries by approximately 10 times. This situation made the closure of the platform in the country inevitable, raising concerns for local streamers and their communities, given that the world of streaming and esports is deeply rooted in South Korean culture.
Dan Clancy emphasized the difficulty of the decision, acknowledging that Twitch has become the livelihood and career for many Korean streamers. However, he expressed a commitment to finding alternative solutions for these content creators. In a positive and humane gesture, the CEO announced that the Twitch team is already collaborating with several other streaming services to facilitate the transition of streamers to new platforms.
I wanted to quickly send my thoughts out to the Korean streamers that are impacted by the decision we have announced today. As I stated in the blog and in the live stream, this was a very difficult decision that we delayed for some time. I just wanted to send out my thoughts to…
— Daniel Clancy (@djclancy999) December 6, 2023
Twitch’s financial situation clearly presents challenges, especially considering the recent mass layoffs. Despite its widespread use and Amazon’s support, the service is facing difficulties in generating profits.
The decision to exit the South Korean market, a major player in esports, is a cause for strong concern as it will negatively impact the platform’s growth prospects. Hopefully, this is not the beginning of a series of shutdowns in other countries.