Twitch's community has raised $75 million for charity since 2012 according to a post on the company's official blog.
The streaming service initially launched as a public beta in June of 2011 as a spin-off of justin.tv, a San Francisco-based Internet startup that let anyone stream video to a channel of their very own. The gaming-focused service eventually outgrew the service that spawned it; justin.tv was shuttered in August of 2014, and the parent company was rebranded as Twitch Interactive to focus on video game streaming endeavors.
Since the site's official launch in 2012, over $75 million has been raised by streamers and viewers alike for a number of charitable causes including Games Done Quick and St. Jude. $25.3 million was raised for charity by the site in 2016 alone, and the streaming service has raised $9.1 million so far in 2017.
Although the numbers involved are impressive, they are not representative of any one massive drive; instead, the money is donated through numerous different live streams benefitting a number of different organizations, some of which have been highlighted by the blog post as particularly notable. GuardianCon more than doubled their previous year's donations with $1.2 million raised for St. Jude, and Games Done Quick raised $2.2 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and $1.8 million for Doctors Without Borders in two separate events. New events have added to the donations as well, with the PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds Charity Invitational having raised $220,000 for Gamers' Outreach and Gamers for Orcas having raised $105,000 for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation in their inaugural events.
If you would like to stay apprised of the company's charitable endeavors, you can follow their Charity Twitter or join the Charity Server on Twitch Desktop to stay apprised of the latest news.
What do you think of Twitch's charitable endeavors? How long do you think it will be before the streaming service will hit the $100 million milestone? What other gaming companies do you follow that heavily focus on helping out those in need? Let us know in the comments below!
