Today, it was announced by the Twitch CEO, Emmett Shear, that Twitch has been bought by Amazon. Rumor had been flying around for a long time that Google was the one to buy Twitch, but a latecomer who was only just recently speculated at being interested has come in and acquired Twitch. People may feel better, as there was quite a bit of worry over Google taking over. We'll see what they have to say about Amazon. According to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon is to pay over $1 billion to acquire Twitch. Shear announced that Amazon bought Twitch in a letter posted on the site. It is basically a big thank you to the Twitch community for their use of the website. One paragraph in particular does stick out however:
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.That seems like it is pretty good news. According to this, Twitch will remain relatively autonomous, but it would surprise no one to see some relatively significant changes in the near future. Not so long ago, there was rumor surfacing that Google was going to acquire Twitch, for roughly the same amount of money. That of course has turned out to not be the case. Twitch was apparently entertaining at least two offers, and chose the one that best suited them. This should assuage some people, including myself, as they feared the changes Google might enact to make Twitch more like Youtube. But, now the question is, what will Amazon have in store? What kinds of changes are coming down the way? Well, until we get an official statement from Amazon, we won't know. Here is what Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, had to say:
Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month – from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old. Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community.That doesn't give any real insight into the future, but Bezos seems to be excited about the venture. Here's to hoping that means good things to come.
