SAN FRANCISCO (CelebrityAccess) — After months of a rumored acquisition by Google, Amazon on Monday announced that it has purchased video streaming site Twitch for $970 million in cash.
Twitch, a platform for streamed content, including video games, saw more than 55 million unique visitors who viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content in July, produced by more than 1 million broadcasters, including individual gamers, pro players, publishers, developers, media outlets, conventions and stadium-filling esports organizations.
While the reasons the Google deal failed to close was not disclosed, it may have been due to anti-trust concerns as Google already owns the hugely popular YouTube video and streaming service. Twitch is also wrestling with intellectual property issues with some streamers including unlicensed copyrighted music in their broadcasts, which may have deterred Google.
“Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month – from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community.”
“Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming,” said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. “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. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world.” – Staff Writers
