Amazon is reportedly set to lay off 35 per cent of Twitch staff.
Amazon is reportedly set to make 500 Twitch employees redundant
The tech giant is behind the interactive live streaming service but sources have now claimed to Bloomberg that at least least 500 employees will be made redundant, with the annoucement due to be made on Wednesday (10.01.24.)
In December, it was confirmed that the service till no longer be available in Korea from February 27, 2024, due to "operating at a loss".
Dan Clancy, the CEO of the live-streaming service, insists the team did everything possible to try and reduce expenses due to steep network fees in the country, however, it ultimately became an unviable venture.
He said: "This morning, I shared with our community in Korea that we’ve made the difficult decision to shut down the Twitch business in Korea on February 27, 2024 KST. We understand that this is extremely disappointing news, and we want to explain why we made this decision and how we are planning to support those impacted.
"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