Amazon Steps In, Picks Up Twitch for $970 Million
posted Friday Aug 29, 2014 by Nicholas DiMeo
So it turns out the entire Internet was wrong, including us, and Google didn't actually buy Twitch. All the changes just seemed to be coincidence, as it was announced this week that Amazon stepped in and laid out $970 million for the video game streaming service.
It seems that Google was in talks with Twitch for some time, but when the two companies discussed possible anti-trust issues, something Google is extremely familiar with, the sides could not come to an agreement on a "break-up" fee in case the deal couldn't go through. When that happened, Twitch continued to shop around and Amazon was in the wings the whole time. Amazon's $970 million check makes Twitch the largest aquisition for the company.
So what happens now? Obviously this maintains competition in the market and puts Google on the defensive. Twitch seemed to be the clear answer for YouTube's failing YouTube Live service, and now Google will have to come up with an alternative plan to attract new content creators. Of course, there's other competition like Hitbox, and Vimeo is also considering a stronger push to live content, but YouTube is now in a position of do-or-die.
For Twitch, this is good news all around. More server support, more resources and the ability to continue to grow are what comes to the table from Amazon. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear puts it all into perspective for us on why this all went down.
We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We're keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon's support we'll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.
My outlook on this whole thing is much more optimistic than it was two weeks ago. YouTube picking up Twitch was going to make most gamers very sad, however the myriad of changes that Twitch implemented since the rumors started aren't going away. So what will happen now? Content creators didn't really leave Twitch, despite their threats from last week, so hopefully this news will entice them to stay. Twitch is still breaking records, too, and we'll probably see more growth, unique viewers and new channels coming to the service by the end of the year.
