Twitch to suspend its operations in Korea next year

Twitch, a livestreaming platform owned by Amazon, announced that it would cease operations in South Korea on February 27, 2024.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in a press statement that the streaming platform would stop offering services in the nation on February 27, 2024. This provides Korean content producers with around 1.5 months to settle their accounts on the website operated by Amazon. Viewers and streamers all over the nation have expressed their dismay at the news.

According to the blog post published by Twitch, streamers who set Korea as their country of residence will no longer be able to monetize their streams, and viewers in Korea will be unable to purchase anything through the service starting February 27. The final payouts for Korean streamers will be issued on March 16, and all affiliates and partners will be off-boarded by June 4. It appears that while Korean viewers will still be able to watch streams, their interactions with the site will be entirely distinct.

한국 시간 기준 2024년 2월 27일부로 한국 내 Twitch 운영이 종료됩니다. 어려운 결정에 이르게 된 자세한 내용은 Twitch 블로그를 통해 확인하실 수 있습니다.https://t.co/PnKbn6XoGA pic.twitter.com/0sPTofJYc2

— Twitch Korea (@TwitchKR) December 6, 2023

 

Why Twitch is leaving South Korea?

Clancy details the company’s several attempts to save expenses by adjusting its operations in South Korea. In September 2022, Twitch reduced the resolution of their video services in South Korea from 1080p to 720p and barred South Korean streamers from posting video-on-demand content later that year. Despite Twitch’s best efforts, operating costs in Korea have been prohibitively high, said Clancy.

According to Dan Clancy, the business has been paying internet carriers in South Korea network rates that are ten times more than in many other regions. According to The New York Times, the astronomical expenses are the result of regional laws requiring international businesses to pay hefty network usage fees to conduct business in the nation. With the high amount of traffic resulting from live streaming, the figures soon mount up since international content providers must pay more for data consumption.

Clancy’s assertions concerning network costs, could not be independently verified, according to Jung Sang-wook, an official with the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association. According to Sang-wook, network usage fees are individually negotiated between firms and sealed with non-disclosure agreements.

Regardless, Twitch users in South Korea expressed intense dissatisfaction at the decision, and it’s believed that many of them felt compelled to migrate to other services like YouTube or the South Korean streaming website Afreeca TV.  Twitch will enable creators to promote links to external platforms using Onsite Messages, according to the press release. To make the transition as easy as possible, the company is also open to working with other websites.

Header: Twitch