Twitch to Shut Down Operations in Korea

Twitch Leaving Korea in 2024. Credit: Amazon

Amazon-owned live streaming platform Twitch announced Tuesday evening that it will shut down operations in South Korea in 2024. Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in a blog post that the service will officially shut down in the country Feb. 27, 2024.

Clancy cited the cost of operating the service as the main reason for shutting down in the region, mostly due to network fees, which he claims are 10 times higher than in other countries. 

“The cost of running Twitch in Korea is currently prohibitively high. We have put a lot of effort into finding ways to continue operating in Korea by reducing costs. First, we introduced and tested the P2P model regarding source quality, and then adjusted the maximum video quality to 720p. Although these efforts were able to reduce costs somewhat, the network fees in Korea were 10 times higher than in most other countries, making operations no longer feasible. As a result, Twitch has continued to operate with difficulty in Korea with significant losses, but has reached a situation where it can no longer find a way to continue operations.”

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) told Reuters in a statement Wednesday that those network usage fees are being reviewed as “a comprehensive matter that requires consideration of the sustainable development of the internet network, the content industry and user convenience,” but the agency did not respond directly to the Twitch situation.

At the end of February, users in South Korea will now have fewer options to stream in the country and will have to use other options available to them such as Afreeca TV or YouTube.

In September content streaming platform Netflix and broadband service provider SK Broadband settled a nearly three-year-long lawsuit over the cost of traffic and signed an agreement to work together on new products within the region that share costs and revenue, launching sometime at the beginning of 2023.