Twitch to shut down in South Korea due to “prohibitively expensive” costs

Twitch has announced its sudden decision to cease operations in South Korea, citing “prohibitively expensive” costs as the motivation.

Twitch, the renowned streaming service operated by Amazon, will shut down its services in Korea on February 27, 2024, the company has confirmed.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy explained in a detailed blog post that the platform has allegedly suffered from the “prohibitively” high costs of operating in the Korean market.

And now, Twitch has made the “very difficult decision” to shut down all operations in the region.

“Twitch has been operating in Korea at a significant loss,” Clancy stated in the blog. “Our network fees in Korea are still 10 times more expensive than in most other countries.”

Clancy notes that despite efforts to reduce costs, including experimenting with a peer-to-peer model and limiting source quality to 720p, the financial challenges have seemingly proven insurmountable.

Twitch’s closure will mark a significant shift in the Korean streaming landscape, where Twitch has been a major player.

“To all of our global communities, we want to make it clear that this is a unique situation,” Clancy emphasized, acknowledging the distinct challenges faced in Korea compared to other markets.

With the announcement, Clancy has also assured that Twitch is committed to assisting Korean streamers in transitioning to other local livestreaming services.

“We plan to help these communities find new homes — even if it’s regrettably not on Twitch,” he said. “We will work to help Twitch streamers in Korea move their communities to alternative livestreaming services in Korea.”

Clancy has since addressed the affected Korean streamers directly on X (formerly known as Twitter), saying, “I just wanted to send out my thoughts to them as I am aware that this will have a real impact on them.”