Twitch announces closure of operations in Korea

Twitch, the live-stream goliath, has announced their plans to shut down business operations in Korea. This comes after adjustments in prices from the Korean ISPs have dramatically increased the price of operations for Twitch within Korea. In this article, let us explore the possible ramifications of Twitch’s exit from Korea’s webspace.

Attempts to Middleground Stonewalled

Twitch outlined in their notification to all Korean streamers on their platform that their foreclosure in Korea comes at the heel of extreme price hikes in operation costs that have made it unsustainable for Twitch to continue operating in Korea. The closure will officially happen on the 27th of February 2024, according to the notice.

Moreover, according to the notice, Twitch outlined that they had been aware of the unsustainable nature of the increasing costs, and had attempted to take measures to correct for it. The first method involved the use of a peer-to-peer model to moderate the source quality. Then, they attempted to cap the source quality to a maximum of 720p.

Ultimately, they stated, their network costs in Korea still amounted to 10 times the amount compared to most other countries. This has caused Twitch to run in Korea at a significant loss.

Forced Transition for Korean Content Creators

This is the biggest change that will come from Twitch’s exit from Korea. Existing Korean content creators and content creators based in Korea will both be dramatically affected by this change. The business of streaming is a delicate balance and requires constant maintenance between the streamer and their audience. A dramatic shift to another platform can affect many elements:

• Viewers have to familiarize themselves with a new streaming platform to continue supporting their favorite streamer.
• The considerable effort and reduced desire to continue watching/following on a less preferable platform.
• The streamer has to familiarize themselves with a new streaming platform.
• Remarketing to ensure the highest possible retention rate of the audience when swapping platforms.

Three Main Options

There exists three primary options for streamers when transitioning to another platform following this closure of Twitch’s operations in Korea. There is AfreecaTV, Kick, and YouTube.

For all three, the primary concern comes from marketing. Twitch is far and away the most recognizable brand when it comes to live-streaming on. In this ever-growing market, it is still recognized as the largest and the most popular.

Therefore, not only does the attractiveness of the Twitch platform attract numerous new streamers (thus increasing the options to watch), it also improves viewer fluidity. The option to move from one stream to another without having to swap browsers, all the while knowing that the vast majority of English-speaking streamers will be on Twitch.

YouTube is a possible alternative to Twitch and the most like, however, YouTube live-streaming is still seen as a subpar experience compared to Twitch, especially for the live chat functionality. However, YouTube does offer stream replayability and many similar features to Twitch streams.

Kick is currently seen as a more unsavory version of Twitch, with less moderated content. Moreover, it is also far less popular compared to other models such as Twitch and YouTube. However, because of the smaller user base currently, it offers the unique advantage of smaller streamers being found and growing faster.

Lastly, we have AfreecaTV. This is a streaming platform that is primarily popular in Asia, especially in Korea. However, this is not a platform frequented by the majority of casual Western audience, of which comprises the large majority of stream audiences much of the time. Therefore, transitioning a stream here could prove challenging, especially for English speaking channels.

The End of Popular Korea-centric League of Legends content?

For League of Legends, Korea is considered the holy land for competitive play. Their servers are considered legendary due to the quality of play, the quality of players, and the number of high-level players that play on the server. All of these factors together makes Korea and their League of Legends servers an extremely tempting destination.

Once a year, popular streamers will make the pilgrimage to Korea to practice against some of the best players in the world. Whenever Worlds comes to Korea or China, the pilgrimage will be extra enticing, but even without, the travel is still worth it.

With Korea’s servers having the legendary status, Korean Solo Queue content is among the highest demand content online, and Twitch streams featuring Korean Solo Queue is highly prized. The dissolution of Twitch’s business in Korea may see a sharp decrease in many of these streams, as the vast majority of streamers that travel there yearly, have audiences primarily on Twitch.

The Uncertainty of Riot-based English-speaking Broadcasts

Riot Games is among the biggest distributor of esports related content in the Korean and Asia space. This is thanks to their massive titles, League of Legends and Valorant, both of whom have grown with immense popularity and have large fanbases in these regions.

Some of their most popular products include the LCK (League of Legends Championship Korea) and the VCT Pacific (based in Seoul). It is currently unknown how Riot will handle the transition, though it is likely that if a compromise cannot be reached, Riot will be forced to transition to other alternatives to stream Korea-based content in 2024.

Rise of Competitors

In the hours since Twitch announced their departure from Korea, the stock price of AfreecaTV has already increased by 25% according to a sharp-eyed Twitter user.

Without doubt, as Twitch finalizes their business departure from Korea, their competitors in AfreecaTV and YouTube especially, will likely see a dramatic increase in their userbase. The long-term benefits and ramifications of such a change is yet to be seen.

Stay tuned as the story continued to unfold.

Credit: Twitch Korea

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