What is Twitch Interactive?

Twitch is an American video live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming, including broadcasts of esports competitions, in addition to offering music broadcasts, creative content, and "in real life" streams. Twitch is operated by Twitch Interactive, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc.[4] It was introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv.[5] Content on the site can be viewed either live or via video on demand. The games shown on Twitch's current homepage are listed according to audience preference and include genres such as real-time strategy games (RTS), fighting games, racing games, and first-person shooters.[6]

The popularity of Twitch eclipsed that of its general-interest counterpart. In October 2013, the website had 45 million unique viewers,[7] and by February 2014, it was considered the fourth-largest source of peak Internet traffic in the United States. At the same time, Justin.tv's parent company was re-branded as Twitch Interactive to represent the shift in focus – Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014.[8] That month, the service was acquired by Amazon for US$970 million,[9][10] which later led to the introduction of synergies with the company's subscription service Amazon Prime. Twitch acquired Curse LLC in 2016, an operator of online video gaming communities[11] and introduced means to purchase games through links on streams along with a program allowing streamers to receive commissions on the sales of games that they play.

By 2015, Twitch had more than 100 million viewers per month.[12] In 2017, Twitch remained the leading live streaming video service for video games in the US, and had an advantage over YouTube Gaming, which shut down its standalone app in May 2019.[13][14][15] As of February 2020, it had 3 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily active users, with 1.4 million average concurrent users.[16][17] As of May 2018, Twitch had over 27,000 partner channels.[16][18]

Twitch is a video live streaming service that gained popularity by focusing on video game live streaming broadcasts.