Amazon Acquires Twitch

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Cal
Denmark (Kasper)
Denmark (Kasper)
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Amazon Acquires Twitch

Post by Cal » Tue Aug 26, 2014 6:05 am

Despite looking set for sale to Google for the past couple of months while rumours persisted and they got themselves into suitable shape for purchase (content ID style stuff, vastly reducing archived content), Twitch.tv has been bought by Amazon for $970m cash. Interestingly they say that they chose Amazon, so there may have been several suitors.

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Dear Twitch Community,

It’s almost unbelievable that slightly more than 3 years ago, Twitch didn’t exist. The moment we launched, we knew we had stumbled across something special. But what followed surprised us as much as anyone else, and the impact it’s had on both the community and us has been truly profound.

Your talent, your passion, your dedication to gaming, your memes, your brilliance - these have made Twitch what it is today. Every day, we strive to live up to the standard set by you, the community. We want to create the very best place to share your gaming and life online, and that mission continues to guide us.

Together with you, we’ve found new ways of connecting developers and publishers with their fans. We’ve created a whole new kind of career that lets people make a living sharing their love of games. We’ve brought billions of hours of entertainment, laughter, joy and the occasional ragequit. I think we can all call that a pretty good start.

Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. 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.

I personally want to thank you, each and every member of the Twitch community, for what you’ve created. Thank you for putting your faith in us. Thank you for sticking with us through growing pains and stumbles. Thank you for bringing your very best to us and sharing it with the world. Thank you, from a group of gamers who never dreamed they’d get to help shape the face of the industry that we love so much.

It’s dangerous to go alone. On behalf of myself and everyone else at Twitch, thank you for coming with us.

Emmett Shear, CEO
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Continued independence sounds good (but they always say that, I've no idea what Amazon's track record is for this), rather than being assimilated into the Google machine. Not sure what else to really think about it, but at least it means Google will have to step up their game with Youtube's live-streaming if they want to compete, rather than just rolling Twitch into it.

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