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Twitch Will Shut Down Its Streaming Platform in South Korea
Twitch, once popular among South Korean gamers, will shut its business there in February. Streamers in South Korea would no longer be able to make money through Twitch.
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A cost-cutting downgrade in video resolution in South Korea caused an exodus of users. Credit...Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
By John Yoon
Reporting from Seoul
Dec. 6, 2023
Twitch, the popular video streaming service, will shut down its services in South Korea next year, the company said on Tuesday, after struggling for years with the “prohibitively expensive” costs of operating in the country.
Twitch was one of the most popular platforms for gamers in South Korea, even as it competed with domestic services like AfreecaTV and giants like YouTube, analysts say. The service, owned by Amazon, draws about 35 million visitors a day worldwide, according to the company.
“Twitch was once in the driver’s seat among South Korean pro gamers for a while,” said Ha Jae-pil, a professor of e-sports at Kookje University in South Korea. Some League of Legends, Overwatch and Apex Legends tournaments in the country were streamed exclusively on Twitch, he said.
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John Yoon reports from the Seoul newsroom of The Times. He previously reported for the coronavirus tracking team, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2021. He joined The Times in 2020. More about John Yoon
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 7, 2023, Section B , Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Twitch Leaves South Korea, Saying Costs Are Prohibitive . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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