Twitch is an American video live-streaming service popular in video games, including broadcasts of esports competitions. It also offers music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.[7] It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv.
Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch's current homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games, fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters.[8]
The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of Justin.tv. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers, and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth-largest source of peak Internet traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv's parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus when Justin.tv was getting shut down in August 2014. The same month, the service was acquired by Amazon for US$970 million, which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company's subscription service Amazon Prime.
By 2015, Twitch had more than 100 million viewers per month.[9] In 2017, Twitch remained the leading live-streaming video service for video games in the US, and had an advantage over YouTube Gaming, which shut down its standalone app in May 2019.[10][11][12] As of February 2020, it had three million broadcasters monthly and 15 million active users daily, with 1.4 million average concurrent users.[13][14] As of May 2018, Twitch had over 27,000 partner channels.[13][15] As of January 2025, Twitch was the 30th-most-visited website in the world with 23.46% of its traffic coming from the United States, followed by Russia with 8.87%, Germany with 7.08% and France with 6.26%.[16][17] In late 2023, Twitch announced that it would stop operating in South Korea in 2024 because of its network fee policy, citing prohibitive costs.
History
Founding and initial growth (2007–2013)
When Justin.tv was launched in 2007 by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, two recent Yale graduates, the site was divided into several content categories. The gaming category grew especially fast, and became the most popular content on the site.[18] In June 2011,[19] the company decided to spin off the gaming content as TwitchTV, inspired by the term twitch gameplay. It launched officially in public beta on June 6, 2011.[20] Since then, Twitch has attracted more than 35 million unique visitors a month.[21][22]
Content
Twitch is designed to be a platform for content, including esports tournaments, personal streams of individual players, and gaming-related talk shows.[135] A number of channels do live speedrunning.[136] The Twitch homepage currently displays games based on viewership.[30] As of June 2018, some of the most popular games streamed on Twitch are Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto V, League of Legends, Dota 2, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Hearthstone, Overwatch and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with a combined total of over 356 million hours watched.
Twitch has also made expansions into non-gaming content; such as in July 2013, the site streamed a performance of 'Fester's Feast' from San Diego Comic-Con, and on July 30, 2014, electronic dance music act Steve Aoki broadcast a live performance from a nightclub in Ibiza.[137]
Creators and audience
Streamers
Streamer Ninja had been among Twitch's top personalities, with over 14 million followers. In August 2019, however, Ninja announced that he would move exclusively to a Microsoft-owned competitor, Mixer.[203][204][205] After Ninja left, the top three streamers in October 2019 based on follower count were Tfue (7.01 million followers), Shroud (6.45 million followers) and TSM Myth (5.1 million followers).[206] Twitch began signing exclusivity deals with high-profile streamers in December 2019, starting with DrLupo, TimTheTatman, and Lirik, who had a combined 10.36 million followers at the time.[79]
Content moderation and restrictions
Copyrighted content
On August 6, 2014, Twitch announced that all on-demand videos on Twitch became subject to acoustic fingerprinting using software provided by content protection company Audible Magic; if copyrighted music (particularly, songs played by users from outside of the game they are playing) is detected, the 30-minute portion of the video which contains the music will be muted. Live broadcasts were not subject to these filters.[252][253] A system was available for those who believed they were inappropriately affected and had rights to the music they used to challenge the filtering.[254] Twitch offered a selection of royalty-free music for streamers to use, which was expanded upon later in January 2015.[255] The audio filtering system, along with the lack of communication surrounding the changes in general, proved to be controversial among users.
Internet censorship
As of September 20, 2018, the Twitch website is blocked and the app is blocked from the Apple App Store in China.[315]
In India, Twitch was reportedly blocked by Reliance-owned telecommunication company Jio as well as internet service providers JioFiber and Hathway in September 2020 as some users were illegally streaming Indian Premier League cricket matches on the platform.[316] Later it was unblocked.
Slovakia's government reportedly blocked Twitch in June 2021 after a streamer in the country with around 35,000 followers was found streaming poker, which was in violation of local gambling laws.[317][318]
Platform support
Twitch CEO Emmett Shear has stated a desire to support a wide variety of platforms, stating that it wanted to be on "every platform where people watch video".[30] Users can watch Twitch streams via Twitch's website in a web browser and via dedicated streaming apps for mobile devices, digital media players and video game consoles. This includes:
Users can broadcast to Twitch from the following platforms:
TwitchCon
TwitchCon is a biannual fan convention devoted to Twitch and the culture of video game streaming.[360] The inaugural event was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from September 25 to 26, 2015. Since its inception TwitchCon has been an annual event. The second TwitchCon was held in San Diego at the San Diego Convention Center from September 30 to October 2, 2016.[361] The third annual TwitchCon was held in Long Beach at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center from October 20 to 22, 2017.[362] The fourth annual TwitchCon was held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California, from October 26 to 28, 2018.[363] In 2019, TwitchCon expanded overseas and hosted its first ever European event in Berlin in April 2019,[364]
See also
- List of social networking services
- Kick, a similar livestreaming service
External links
References
- Jay Peters. Another Twitch co-founder is leaving the company, leaving only one The Verge, November 19, 2020, retrieved January 2, 2021^
- 16 Years of Twitch^
- Twitch Hires YouTube Alum Laura Lee as Chief Content Officer November 3, 2022, retrieved March 17, 2023