Twitch to shut down streaming platform in South Korea

Video streaming service Twitch will shut down its services in South Korea on February 27, 2024, CEO Dan Clancy said in a blog post. Clancy said that “ultimately, the cost to operate Twitch in Korea is prohibitively expensive and we have spent significant effort working to reduce these costs so that we could find a way for the Twitch business to remain in Korea. First, we experimented with a peer-to-peer model for source quality. Then, we adjusted source quality to a maximum of 720p. While we have lowered costs from these efforts, our network fees in Korea are still 10 times more expensive than in most other countries. Twitch has been operating in Korea at a significant loss, and unfortunately there is no pathway forward for our business to run more sustainably in that country.” Twitch is owned by Amazon.