Twitch, the popular video live-streaming platform, has decided to shut down its business in South Korea on 27 February 2024 amid concerns of “prohibitively expensive” operating costs.
Dan Clancy, CEO of Twitch, made this difficult decision public through a blog post on Twitch’s official website saying, “Twitch has been operating in Korea at a significant loss, and unfortunately there is no pathway forward for our business to run more sustainably in that country.“
Operating costs for streaming in Korea are significantly higher than in other countries, and the Twitch team has spent significant effort reducing these costs. Their efforts have helped lower the costs a little bit, but the network fees in Korea are still 10 times more expensive than in most other countries.
Finally, Twitch has planned to shut down in Korea and even wants to help Twitch streamers move their communities to alternative live-streaming services in Korea.
South Korea has a thriving community of streamers and gamers, and Twitch is looking forward to finding new homes for these communities as many of them have developed their businesses on top of Twitch.
Now competitors of Twitch will gain a lot of these streamers, and many live-streaming platforms like Kick.com are publicly welcoming Korean streamers to join and keep their communities live.
The top 5 Twitch alternatives in South Korea will be AfreecaTV, YouTube, Kick.com, TVING and CHZZK. There are many more online video live-streaming services in Korea and many new platforms will come to capture the market share of Twitch, but it’s unclear if they can sustain Twitch’s fate.
