Twitch, the game streaming company we all love has been snapped up by Amazon for $970 million in hard cash. Rumors were rife that Google has almost completed the buyout of this company, but things have gone the other way in the last few days. This acquisition is supposed to close in the second half of 2014, and there’s no word yet as to what changes will be made to the services currently being offered by the popular internet streaming company.
Twitch was first launched back in June 2011, and has risen to be the best live video solution for gamers from around the world. If last month’s figures are to be looked at, the site had 55 million unique visitors watching more than one million broadcasters produce over 15 billion minutes of content. This kind of growth in just three years is something that would definitely grab the attention of biggies like Amazon or Google for that matter.
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What went wrong with the latter’s deal has something to do with a possible anti-trust legislation. According to Eurogamer, had Google bought Twitch, there was a risk that the deal would’ve been blocked under US’ anti-competition laws for being an attempt at reducing competition, owing to the fact that Google already owns YouTube. And while talks between Mountain View and the game-streaming service were going on about who will handle the collateral damage if the deal is blocked, Amazon stepped in and pushed the envelope.
No immediate change is expected to be made in Twitch’s offerings by Amazon, but there might be something in store for us in the long term.