작년에 아마존에 거의 1조원에 Twitch(트위치 라고 읽어야겠죠?)를 샀지요. 게임에 빠지지 않아 가치를 잘 몰랐는데, 며칠째 Twitch를 돌아다녀보니 이 놈 정말 물건이네요. 그래서 YouTube도 게임방송을 지원한다고 하고 게임방송에 서로 뛰어드는게 이해가 됩니다. 얼핏 계산해도 1면에 LIVE방송을 시청하고 있는 사람만 50만명은 넘어보입니다. 자신의 비디오와 게임비디오를 mix해서 그 엄청난 양의 정보를 LIVE로 broadcast할수 있게한다니 정말 대단한 기술입니다. 게이머가 세팅할수 있는 자유도도 엄청난것 같습니다. 네트웍 디자인도 잘 했는지 유럽이나 전세계 오지(?)에서 하는 게임도 상당히 빠르게 나옵니다.
관심있는 게임을 몇개 눌러보니 상당히 재밌습니다. 게임을 사기전에 미리 봐도 좋고, 심심할때 봐도 좋고, 좋아하는 게임을 봐도 좋고. 수요가 정말 많은것 같습니다.
90년대 한국 프로게이머들의 게임이 유행하듯이 여기서도 superstar가 나오는것 같습니다. 수익모델은 Donation도 받는것 같고요, 광고를 올려서 광고비를 받기도 하는것 같습니다. 20대 초반의 남녀가 많은것 같고, 첫면에 보이는 여자 게이머는 가슴이 들어난 옷을 자주 입으며 화장도 예쁘게 하고 게임을 하네요. 많은 할일없는 남자들이 지켜볼줄 안다면 돈벌줄 아는거지요.
한국에 아프리카 TV가 인기라는 것을 잘 알고있는데, 별풍선 아이디어 좋자나요~ 많은 레이싱걸들이 방송도 하고. 그 시스템을 이용해서 라이브로 뉴스도 보도하고, 현장중계도하고.
사실 아프리카 TV전에 한국의 유투부라 할만한것이 먼저 나왔어야 한다고 생각합니다. 어러 대기업 위주의 경제기반도 문제도 있고 밴쳐를 해서 성공할수 없는 분위기도 그렇지요. 한국에서 자란 사람들의 마인드도 좀 문제인것이 한국같은 좁은 나라에 살다보면 큰 기상을 갖기가 쉽지 않지요. 그 많은 비디오를 저장하고 네트웍으로 play한다는게 한국사람 생각에서 쉽게 나오기가 어렵죠. 제2의 아프리카TV가 많이 나왔으면 좋겠네요.
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Amazon to Buy Video Site Twitch for $970 Million
Deal Could Accelerate Competition With Netflix, Google's YouTube
Amazon has acquired Twitch Interactive, a popular Internet video channel for broadcasting and watching people play video games. WSJ looks at the rapid growth of video games as a spectator sport.
By
DOUGLAS MACMILLAN and
GREG BENSINGER
Updated Aug. 26, 2014 1:04 p.m. ET
As videogames become a spectator sport, Amazon.com Inc. just bought the world's largest arena.
The e-commerce giant said Monday it agreed to acquire Twitch Interactive Inc., a popular Internet video channel for broadcasting, and watching, people play videogames, for about $970 million in cash.
The deal is Amazon's second biggest, and underscores the popularity of online gaming. Though little-known outside of tech and gaming, Twitch, founded in 2011, is the fourth-largest source of U.S. Internet traffic, behind only Netflix Inc.,Google Inc. and Apple Inc., according to network researcher DeepField Inc.
Last October, 32 million people watched the championship of Riot Games Inc.'s "League of Legends" on various streaming services, more than the series finales of television shows "Breaking Bad," "24" and "The Sopranos" put together.
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Amazon is paying $970 million for videogame streaming site Twitch. ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Twitch could also help Amazon accelerate a push into Web video that is brought it into competition with Netflix and Google's YouTube. Twitch seized on the popularity of games like "League of Legends" and "Minecraft," developing tools to let players broadcast their game sessions to an audience of more than 55 million users and generating revenue from advertising and subscriptions.
Twitch owns technology for streaming live video capable of supporting a large number of simultaneous viewers for events like game tournaments and music concerts. Twitch accounts for nearly 2% of peak U.S. Internet traffic, DeepField said.
"In the same way that YouTube and Netflix have to develop really robust architecture to stream enormous amounts of video, Twitch had to build a similar infrastructure geared toward live gaming,"David Cowan, a partner at Twitch investor Bessemer Venture Partners, said in an interview.
Google held talks about potentially acquiring Twitch as early as May, two people told The Wall Street Journal at the time. Then, Twitch hired star Silicon Valley deal maker Frank Quattrone to shop the company to other potential buyers, including Amazon, Mr. Cowan said. Google declined to comment.
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Yahoo Inc. also had expressed interest in Twitch, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokeswoman for Yahoo declined to comment.
Amazon has been making a push into gaming, including bulking up its staff of programmers at its studios in Seattle and Southern California. The company has introduced several new videogames to complement its Fire TV set-top box, introduced in April, and sells a devoted controller for gaming.
Mike Frazzini, vice president of Amazon Games, said acquiring Twitch will help the retailer round out its gaming business.
"Amazon is invested heavily in games," Mr. Frazzini said. The acquisition is "a substantial step forward as we think about games generally."
Twitch could also help Amazon expand its fledgling online-ad business. The site is most popular with young male gamers, a segment of Internet users attractive to advertisers, said Seth Bardelas, head of agency development at online-ad analytics firm TubeMogul.
Because of this, advertisers on average pay about 85% higher prices for ads on Twitch than other video sites on average, TubeMogul estimates.
Twitch will operate as an independent subsidiary of Amazon, led by co-founder and Chief Executive Emmett Shear,31, who studied computer science at Yale University. He frequently takes to Reddit and other sites to answer questions from the Twitch community of gamers. The company will keep its San Francisco office and all of its roughly 170 employees will take jobs at Amazon, Mr. Shear said.
Twitch emerged from Justin.tv, one of the earliest streaming-video sites on the Web, founded in 2006 by Justin Kan and Kyle Vogt.Other companies spawned by Justin.tv include Socialcam, a social-video-sharing app acquired by Autodesk Inc. for $60 million in 2012, and Exec, a housecleaning service that sold for less than $10 million earlier this year.
Twitch raised $35 million from investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Thrive Capital and videogame-maker Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.
The deal for Twitch would be less than Amazon's final price tag for online-shoe retailer Zappos, which rose to about $1.2 billion in late 2009 as Amazon's stock rose. More recently, Amazon paid $775 million in 2012 for Kiva Systems, a maker of robots for moving inventory around warehouses.
For Twitch, Amazon agreed to pay more than $100 million in additional payments if certain performance objectives are met, which could lift the final price tag above $1 billion, said one person familiar with the deal.
Amazon generally keeps its subsidiaries at arm's length, allowing them to maintain their own corporate culture and hiring standards. Zappos, for instance, still maintains its iconoclastic office culture, with events like a day for employees to wear pajamas to work.
—Alistair Barr, Evelyn M. Rusli, Rolfe Winkler and Drew FitzGerald contributed to this article.
Write to Douglas MacMillan at douglas.macmillan@wsj.com and Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com
