United States32184 Posts
Due to the local regulatory environment, Korean ISP’s can charge considerable network usage fees to content providers that account for large volumes of traffic. Twitch is not the only company to struggle with Korea’s broadband policies—Netflix recently concluded a two-year long legal dispute with SK Broadband.
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.
To all of our global communities, we want to make it clear that this is a unique situation. Operating costs in Korea are significantly higher than they are in other countries and we have been open about this challenge for some time.
Twitch streamers in Korea have devoted significant time and effort into building their communities, and we plan to help these communities find new homes — even if it’s regrettably not on Twitch. We will work to help Twitch streamers in Korea move their communities to alternative livestreaming services in Korea. We are also reaching out to several of these services to help with the transition and will communicate with impacted streamers as those discussions progress.
I want to reiterate that this was a very difficult decision and one we are very disappointed we had to make. Korea has always and will continue to play a special role in the international esports community and we are incredibly grateful for the communities they built on Twitch.
For more information, please see our Help article or join our live stream where I’ll be taking the community’s questions. We will host a stream for our Korean community on /TwitchKR today, December 6 at 9:30 am KST (December 5, at 4:30pm PT). For people outside of the Korean community, I will host another session on /Twitch today, December 6 at 11am KST (December 5, at 6pm PT) to answer questions about this decision or other topics.
Dan Clancy, Twitch CEO
United States40576 Posts
Also isn’t Twitch owned by Amazon… there is no possible way the costs were that high for them to start to sweat it.
United States32184 Posts
Wow, very little notice. Streamers will need to switch over to YouTube asap in order to be ready. Also very weird that apparently S. Korea has laws on the books that says businesses have to pay their users bandwidths unlike say the ISP’s here in the States. Makes me wonder what will happen to all the tournaments scheduled etc.
Also isn’t Twitch owned by Amazon… there is no possible way the costs were that high for them to start to sweat it.
I don’t think that’s really how the regulations work AFAIK? It’s kind of technical and complicated (same-size ISP’s have to pay each other for the traffic they send each other or something like that). The consequence is that ISP’s seem to be incentivized to place huge fees on content providers to recoup costs + their normal business motive of trying to make more money.
I’m sure there’s a lot more nuance to this but I dunno enough about how global broadband networking works to elaborate.
Singapore4100 Posts
Wow, very little notice. Streamers will need to switch over to YouTube asap in order to be ready. Also very weird that apparently S. Korea has laws on the books that says businesses have to pay their users bandwidths unlike say the ISP’s here in the States. Makes me wonder what will happen to all the tournaments scheduled etc.
Also isn’t Twitch owned by Amazon… there is no possible way the costs were that high for them to start to sweat it.
It’s still a business though, even mega corps like Amazon wouldn’t want to stomach costs over a long period of time. It may be a show of power to the telecoms as well that they are prepared to pull out completely if the telecoms are not interested in cooperating.
Mexico2151 Posts
United States32184 Posts
On December 06 2023 15:01 [Phantom] wrote:
Was twitch never popular in korea? or does this ahs to dfo more with the payment twitch needs to make towards ISP and also Korea protecting and giving preference to their national streaming services?
Twitch was pretty popular in Korea!
It’s my understanding that current measures are protectionist as a consequence of foreign content providers accounting for a huge proportion of the traffic in Korea, not necessarily because they’re being specifically targeted due to being foreign (mind you, YouTube, Netflix, etc are all still operating in Korea despite the friction). AFAIK all the domestic services are subject to the same network usage fees, so I don’t think we have a clear answer at the moment as to why specifically Twitch decided business was unsustainable.
United States573 Posts
But, and this is a MASSIVE but, Korean streamers can no longer monetize on Twitch. All Partner/Affiliate contracts will end on February 27th, and they can’t receive any payouts from Subs, Bits, or Ad revenue. Leaving Donations as the only remaining financial option, which is impractical.
In StarCraft terms, this hurts. But the real loss will be felt elsewhere. Variety streamers, Korean-centric games like Lost Ark & Eternal Return, and in particular League of Legends.
Denmark3076 Posts
United States339 Posts
On December 06 2023 19:25 ejozl wrote:
Starcraft on Twitch was an awesome time, but it seems better to move on. Youtube, Rumble and others all allow multiple platform streaming, which is also better. and I am not personally a fan of Twitch and the culture that have spawned around it.
Agrees, twitch has some bad culture around it for sure. 
United States339 Posts
In basic terms, Korean streamers will still be able to stream on Twitch via a VPN through Japan or elsewhere.
But, and this is a MASSIVE but, Korean streamers can no longer monetize on Twitch. All Partner/Affiliate contracts will end on February 27th, and they can’t receive any payouts from Subs, Bits, or Ad revenue. Leaving Donations as the only remaining financial option, which is impractical.
In StarCraft terms, this hurts. But the real loss will be felt elsewhere. Variety streamers, Korean-centric games like Lost Ark & Eternal Return, and in particular League of Legends.
Based take my dude.
United States1247 Posts
France3010 Posts
Wow, very little notice. Streamers will need to switch over to YouTube asap in order to be ready. Also very weird that apparently S. Korea has laws on the books that says businesses have to pay their users bandwidths unlike say the ISP’s here in the States. Makes me wonder what will happen to all the tournaments scheduled etc.
Also isn’t Twitch owned by Amazon… there is no possible way the costs were that high for them to start to sweat it.
I don’t think that’s really how the regulations work AFAIK? It’s kind of technical and complicated (same-size ISP’s have to pay each other for the traffic they send each other or something like that). The consequence is that ISP’s seem to incentivized to place huge fees on content providers + their normal business motive of trying to make more money.
I’m sure there’s a lot more nuance to this but I dunno enough about how global broadband networking works to elaborate.
You are correct but the regulation isn’t that shocking, it s actually been debated elsewhere. In the US and Canada the market is either big enough and/or the cost borne by the consumer is really high, so it s not so much a problem + there is extra lobbying power. But korea is a small very competitive market with cheap prices (relatively) for super fast speed, both mobile and home.
I m pretty sure twitch has other issues specifically in Korea that led them to the decision. If it were a systemic regulatory issue you d see way more pushback from other companies. It might just be a convenient excuse. That or the regulation has extra teeth when it comes to tax/content control
Singapore4100 Posts
On December 06 2023 19:25 ejozl wrote:
Starcraft on Twitch was an awesome time, but it seems better to move on. Youtube, Rumble and others all allow multiple platform streaming, which is also better. and I am not personally a fan of Twitch and the culture that have spawned around it.
Tbf it won’t affect BW much, most pros stream on Afreeca and Youtube and barely get any viewers on Twitch.
United States7613 Posts
Wow, very little notice. Streamers will need to switch over to YouTube asap in order to be ready. Also very weird that apparently S. Korea has laws on the books that says businesses have to pay their users bandwidths unlike say the ISP’s here in the States. Makes me wonder what will happen to all the tournaments scheduled etc.
Also isn’t Twitch owned by Amazon… there is no possible way the costs were that high for them to start to sweat it.
I don’t think that’s really how the regulations work AFAIK? It’s kind of technical and complicated (same-size ISP’s have to pay each other for the traffic they send each other or something like that). The consequence is that ISP’s seem to incentivized to place huge fees on content providers + their normal business motive of trying to make more money.
I’m sure there’s a lot more nuance to this but I dunno enough about how global broadband networking works to elaborate.
You are correct but the regulation isn’t that shocking, it s actually been debated elsewhere. In the US and Canada the market is either big enough and/or the cost borne by the consumer is really high, so it s not so much a problem + there is extra lobbying power. But korea is a small very competitive market with cheap prices (relatively) for super fast speed, both mobile and home.
I m pretty sure twitch has other issues specifically in Korea that led them to the decision. If it were a systemic regulatory issue you d see way more pushback from other companies. It might just be a convenient excuse. That or the regulation has extra teeth when it comes to tax/content control
The ISPs are double dipping. They are making money by charging their customers money but they want their customers to use their service as little as possible (the gym membership strategy). ISPs tend to be local but the biggest CPs are international so the big local guy frequently wins.
ISPs in the US made the same excuses as well. But the likes of Google eventually tried their hand at being an ISP, which forced a competitive response out of the ISPs. Google rolling out 1 Gbps service to select areas forced the ISPs to upgrade their infrastructure as well.
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- Source: https://tl.net/forum/games/618707-twitch-to-cease-business-operations-in-korea
