Twitch has announced that it will lay off 500 employees. That is 35% of the current workforce. While the precise reason is unknown at the moment, the community speculates that the move could be because of the growing competition from other players in the market. Lately, brands like Facebook, YouTube, and Kick have found a way to navigate into the world of gaming. Twitch once dominated it, but its downfall looks to be inevitable for the platform now.
Gamers and other creators are worried about how the industry will react. More specifically, they are concerned if the industry would even survive the downfall of Twitch.
There is no prize for guessing that they are hardcore supporters of the platform, which is not really a bad thing. However, assuming that no other player can lead the industry after anything happens to Twitch is wrong. A part of this was publicly discussed on X, formerly Twitter, between a co-founder of Kick and a user of X.
The user, who goes by the ID Jake Lucky, published on X that they are trying to fathom what will happen to the industry if Twitch somehow implodes. Bijan Tehrani responded to that post by saying that Kick will eventually buy Twitch.
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Launched in early 2023, calling for a buyout of a well-established platform is a pretty novice move. But the confidence stems from the fact that they are capable of paying £70 million to xQc for signing a non-exclusive streaming deal.
Others were quick enough to follow up on the response, and many of them said that it would be one of the craziest stories in the history of gaming. Others said that there may not be a need to buy Twitch anyway; if they do, then it would kill a competitor. The core team of Kick is credited with the launch of Stake, an online crypto casino. Hence, there are no questions about how well Twitch will survive if Kick does buy out the platform.
Kick and Twitch share a history that is filled with competition. One can expect it to be for services and offerings, but it rather originates from their relationship with the parent company.
Kick has been accused of sharing its links with Stake, while Twitch has its roots in Amazon, facing allegations of human rights violations. Twitch streamers had come out in support of their favorite platform, saying that they would rather not make any money than move to a platform that comes from a casino.
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No one is sure how confident they are at the moment since Twitch is facing immense pressure from every possible corner. The recent job cut comes after 500 employees lost their livelihoods in 2023 when Twitch let them go. That was called a part of job reduction at Amazon. The community awaits a reason for the recent job cut, and so are the financial details for a surety that another company will not have bought Twitch to survive.
