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WSJ/TI: Amazon buys Twitch for over $1 billion after Google fall through

Talon

Member
Deal Confirmed by Twitch.
Letter from the CEO August 25, 2014 Dear Twitch Community, It’s almost unbelievable that slightly more than 3 years ago, Twitch didn’t exist. The moment we launched, we knew we had stumbled across something special. But what followed surprised us as much as anyone else, and the impact it’s had on both the community and us has been truly profound. Your talent, your passion, your dedication to gaming, your memes, your brilliance - these have made Twitch what it is today. Every day, we strive to live up to the standard set by you, the community. We want to create the very best place to share your gaming and life online, and that mission continues to guide us. Together with you, we’ve found new ways of connecting developers and publishers with their fans. We’ve created a whole new kind of career that lets people make a living sharing their love of games. We’ve brought billions of hours of entertainment, laughter, joy and the occasional ragequit. I think we can all call that a pretty good start. Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch. I personally want to thank you, each and every member of the Twitch community, for what you’ve created. Thank you for putting your faith in us. Thank you for sticking with us through growing pains and stumbles. Thank you for bringing your very best to us and sharing it with the world. Thank you, from a group of gamers who never dreamed they’d get to help shape the face of the industry that we love so much. It’s dangerous to go alone. On behalf of myself and everyone else at Twitch, thank you for coming with us. Emmett Shear, CEO

http://www.twitch.tv/p/thankyou
Amazon.com has been in late-stage talks to acquire video site Twitch, according to two people familiar with the matter, after reports that Google had virtually sealed a deal to acquire the site for $1 billion.

Whether a deal has been signed remains unclear, but one person close to the transaction said it could be announced shortly.

Spokespeople for Twitch and Amazon did not have an immediate comment. More to follow.
https://www.theinformation.com/Amazon-Nears-Deal-to-Acquire-Twitch

Big scoop for The Information team.

Edit: WSJ corroborates: http://online.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-buy-video-site-twitch-for-more-than-1-billion-1408988885
 

Orayn

Member
I find it weird that some people in the donation thread were insisting that Google had bought them based on approximately zero real evidence and Twitch actually making moves that conflict with the idea of a Google purchase.
 
I thought Google already bought Twitch.

The way I heard it... "Google bought twitch!" which became "Google is thinking about buying twitch!" to "These new twitch policies means Google isn't buying twitch!"

So yeah, I'm confused as heck on this.
 

kenta

Has no PEINS
Not sure if that's good or bad... Amazon has a fairly good track record of buying independent companies and basically letting them do their thing but with more funding. But I wonder if that means they would revert any of the changes made/announced in the last couple of weeks...
 

Krakn3Dfx

Member
Looks like Twitch is dying to get bought out regardless, wonder if it's just for the big money pay off, or if they're getting out before the big hammer of copyright bullshit falls.

Either way, Twitch is closer to the end of it's lifespan as a useful product than it's beginning.
 

Trojan

Member
wow...I thought reports last week had the Google deal practically finalized...wonder if Amazon gave a signficant outbid late in the process?
 

SgtCobra

Member
There is no Amazon where I live (I can't state that enough, can you read this Jeff Bezos?) so I don't know what this means for us.
probably nothing.
 

Patryn

Member
The theory of Google's purchase falling through looks more and more realistic.

Yeah, I read that blog post about how the changes that many people attributed to Google taking over (no longer keeping videos forever, the content ID stuff) actually pointed to it falling through and thought it sounded plausible. This would lend further credence.

I can see Amazon especially pushing for Twitch to get its copyright house in order, because I'm sure the big media companies would be salivating at the idea of suing Amazon over that stuff.

This. I thought this was confirmed when you weren't able to stream anything with music anymore.

As I said above, there was quite an insightful blog post that actually argued the opposite: That the muting of streams pointed to the fact that it had fallen through, actually.
 

Orayn

Member
Isn't the Google deal done? Wasn't that why you had to stop playing music during streams, or is that something totally different?

You can still play music during streams, it gets muted on the stream archive.

Twitch implemented that system with a technology that's completely different from what Google uses for their stuff.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
Sounds like Twitch is having to address copyright issues before Google finalizes it.

I guess Amazon could swoop in. Either way, a shit ton of money for the owners is a shit ton of money.

Twitch would probably get less stupid under Amazon.
 

Dragon

Banned
Sounds like Twitch is having to address copyright issues before Google finalizes it.

I guess Amazon could swoop in. Either way, a shit ton of money for the owners is a shit ton of money.

Twitch would probably get less stupid under Amazon.

I'd hope they'd have access to AWS infrastructure and the 30 second delay would go away.
 

B_Raw

Neo Member
Well now I'm super confused. I had thought Google was a done deal, but looking online, there's no hard confirmation that the deal has been completed anywhere. Just pages that state the sale is ALMOST completed. Even their respective wiki pages (for what that's worth) have no mention of Google acquiring Twitch.
 

Patryn

Member
Sounds like Twitch is having to address copyright issues before Google finalizes it.

I guess Amazon could swoop in. Either way, a shit ton of money for the owners is a shit ton of money.

Twitch would probably get less stupid under Amazon.

Why would Google ask for Twitch to implement their own system for copyright, when it has a system already ready to go?

Even if Google bought Twitch at this point, they'd likely force them switch over to ContentID. It's part of what was so weird about all that.
 

Chris_C

Member
They already managed to ruin comixology. I wonder how they are they ruining twitch.

How have they ruined Comixology? I'm genuinely curious as I haven't fired the app up in a bit. From the outside the deal looked like it would be great for Comixology.
 
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