In 2011, Twitch was founded as a spinoff to Justin.tv, after the gaming content on the site began to overshadow the rest of the content on the site. In the years since, Twitch has grown not only into the top live streaming platform, but the name synonymous with live streaming in general. How the company became the titan in this space is an incredible story.
Shortly after Twitch spinning off from Justin.tv, it quickly overshadowed the rest of the brand, taking out a direct competitor, Own3d.tv, who have since pivoted to other streaming-based content. Their success brought them to the point where the company was rebranded to Twitch Interactive and the rest of Justin.tv was shut down in 2014. In that very same month, corporate giant, Amazon, bought the company for $970 Million, and within a year, Twitch’s viewership eclipsed 100 million viewers per month.
Twitch’s head of community, Mary Kish, talked to me when I attended TwitchCon 10 last week about how the platform’s strong community was a key factor in their success. “Twitch is the number one place to go live,” said Kish, “and I think that is as a result of our very deep roots in our community. We’ve put so much time and energy into our community programs, they can grow. They can learn, and they can make bonds together. All of that culminates in a community that really doesn’t want to go anywhere else.”
The growth continued over the years with 1.4 average concurrent users and over 27,000 channels belonging to partnered accounts and was the fourth largest sources of traffic online behind juggernauts, Netflix, Google and Apple. helped lead to the shutdown of YouTube’s standalone streaming app, YouTube Gaming, in 2019.
The tools and perks that Twitch offered over any alternative platform was a big contributing factor in the company overtaking existing companies and holding back any newcomers. “One of the biggest aha moments we think about is community gifts.” Said Mike Minton, the Chief Product Officer at Twitch.
“They’re such an important part of streamer monetization on twitch.” continued Minton. “When we went to build that product, we weren’t thinking about what it was doing in terms of people that want to be a big supporter and welcome new members into the community. We were coming at it like we saw the single case of I want to give you a gift sub. In retrospect, we should have seen that, but it’s just one of those pleasant surprises where you’re like, ‘wow, that is so powerful.’”
“The tools and perks that Twitch offered over any alternative platform was a big contributing factor in the company overtaking existing companies and holding back any newcomers.”
The key turning point turning the concept of live-streaming into a legitimate form of entertainment came during the pandemic, where viewers were clamoring for more content and would-be creators found themselves in a position where they had all the time in the world where they could give it a legitimate shot. The number of content creators skyrocketed, as did the viewers on the platform.
Twitch’s success has not been without challenges to its supremacy. YouTube Gaming’s demise forced the company to refocus live-streaming into their main app, and made a real go of it as an alternative to Twitch, but the lack of streaming tools and monetization opportunities slowed the people transitioning to a new platform.
Another player, KICK, entered the conversation with serious investors and former faces from Twitch behind it, even using Amazon Web Services to host the platform. Concerns about the site, however, including connections to gambling and toxic behaviour on the part of a number of its creators left many people feeling that it wasn’t the space they wanted to use to host their community.
Regarding Twitch fending off its challengers, Mike Minton had is opinions on why the potential Twitch-killers couldn’t take them down. “People have come along and want to replicate what we’re doing. We have a business model that works, and we’re transparent with the community about how things work and what we stand for and what our policies are.”
Minton also cited their partnerships with companies all across the space, both with hardware and software, who prioritize Twitch in terms of compatibility and makes it easier to bring many elements together to create a more robust stream and get access to all the latest tools right away.
How people stream has become one of the most recent parts of the evolution of Twitch’s success. Partnerships with META and Streamlabs have brought brand new tools, allowing you new ways to broadcast IRL streams using META’s AI Glasses, and ways to seamlessly switch from one type of broadcast to another using Stream Shift, from Streamlabs. Also, the addition of livestreams to long-form video creators as a way to connect with viewers in real-time, has added a new level of nuance to what Twitch viewers are looking for.
“We’re seeing that people that are notable that have an existing audience outside of live streaming are now using live streaming to connect with their audience authentically.” Says Minton, “And I think it’s really having a moment now. They’re not going to stream 40 hours a week, nor would we expect them to, but what they’re able to do is use live streaming to connect in a way they couldn’t before.
The last piece of the puzzle that Twitch has been working on is discoverability for creators on their platform, something that had always been the biggest weak spot for the company, unable to compete with YouTube’s searchability. Updating how clips are seen, now available via stories as well, help people find these creators as well as the ability to stream vertically and horizontally simultaneously, which increases where the streamer can be found, and autoclips (another new tool) increases the amount of content to be found.
I did attempt to coax some of the future roadmap from both Mike Minton and Mary Kish, both of whom were dutifully tight lipped about. In the meantime, Twitch, leaning on a loyal community and the pioneering streaming tools that nobody has been able to match, let alone surpass, has been the clear first choice amongst live-streamers through many challenges. I wouldn’t expect them to be toppled anytime soon. Other platforms can consider that a challenge to take the top spot, and Twitch can consider it their challenge to keep it.
