High network costs have shut down the Korean arm of Twitch.
Streaming platform Twitch is set to shut down operations in South Korea. Last night, the purple faced online broadcaster announced that it its set to turn off operations in a statement on the official blog. In the post, titled ‘An Update on Twitch in Korea’, CEO Dan Clancy confirmed that rising costs are behind the action.
Ultimately, the cost to operate Twitch in Korea is prohibitively expensive
This means that the business will cease to exist in South Korea as of February 27, 2024 KST. The news means that streamers in the region will be unable to locally connect to Twitch and broadcast, cutting out a major source of revenue and placing these communities in a tricky spot. As for viewers, this is unlikely to impact viewers a great deal, whether due to the Internet’s global reach or the use of VPNs to bypass any regional blocks. It’s likely that regional ISPs will continue to serve the platform globally, even if it can’t support local gamers attempting to broadcast their content.
The Problem
This is hardly a surprising situation. Broadcasting online content in country is incredibly expensive. Government regulations related to the cost of data transfer and other ISP charges in country mean that serving twitch to a local audience can cost a huge amount more than the rest of the world. Cloud connectivity provider Cloudflare has a great explanation of this, noting that it can cost 15 times more than elsewhere to send data in South Kora. Twitch confirmed that it has been operating at a loss for some time, and it appears that this can’t continue.
Streamers
In the post, Dan did commit to finding a new home for creatives on the platform. While that’s not great to see a hug market leader leave, it’s at least something. You can find out more about the news on the official blog now.
