Amazon buys Twitch for $970 million

25 August 2014

Remember when Google (through YouTube) was reportedly going to buy Twitch.tv for a billion big ones (R10.7 billion)?

Well, SYKE! Because Amazon has just gone and stole YouTube’s thunder and swiped the video streaming service right from under them for just under that ($970 million – or R10.4 billion).

Why all the fuss? And how could a gaming-centric video streaming service pull so much moola?

Well, according to Twitch, in July, more than 55 million unique visitors viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content on Twitch, produced by more than 1 million broadcasters.

This includes individual gamers, pro players, publishers, developers, media outlets, conventions and stadium-filling eSports organizations.

This is no small pony show, that’s for sure.

“Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently,” said Twitch CEO, Emmett Shear.

“This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world.”

That’s that, then. We do love a juicy coup – I wonder how Google is feeling?

Do you use Twitch? What do you make of all this? Let us know in the comments and on the forum.

More on Twitch

YouTube buying Twitch for R10 billion

“Disabled” gamer banned from Twitch for faking

2.4 billion hours of eSports watched in 2013

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  1. Mike
    26.08.2014 at 19:09

    So glad. The less privacy invasion from Google the better. They would have forced to sign in with Google Minus accounts

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