Twitch ceases operations in Korea

The Korean streaming community will now have to look for another home as Twitch announced a full shutdown across Korea starting February 27. The reason is that Twitch is unable to reach the desired revenue.

As a result, several established streamers will now have to migrate to other platforms., The initial announcement for this was done by Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, back in 2023 in a blog post. Another recent blog post on their website revealed how the platform costs more than the revenue earned in Korea.

“Ultimately, the cost to operate Twitch in Korea is prohibitively expensive, and we have spent significant effort working to reduce these costs so that we could find a way for the Twitch business to remain in Korea,” Clancy said in his statement.

This remained the same even after multiple adjustments from he company. These included limiting the maximum source quality to 720p and a peer-to-peer model. Despite that, the cost of operation remained 10 times more than in other countries.

Twitch to help streamers migrate

Korea was one of the biggest markets for Twitch streams. With the shutdown of the service, a lot is left in the dust. Twitch has been helping these streamers and their community to shift to other streaming platforms.

“We will work to help Twitch streamers in Korea move their communities to alternative live-streaming services in Korea. We are also contacting several of these services to help with the transition and will communicate with impacted streamers as those discussions progress,” Clancy wrote.

While everyone hopes that all the streams properly settle down on new platforms and regain their community, Korea doesn’t seem too happy about its decision to shut down. As a result, South Korea has handed $300,000 to Twitch for suspending their services in the country.