Twitch to end its services in South Korea due to high network fees

Twitch is shutting down in South Korea soon, though its service in other countries will not be affected.

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Streaming platform Twitch announced that they will end their services in South Korea due to high operating costs.

This news was shared by Twitch’s CEO Dan Clancy through the streaming website’s official blog post. There, he stated that despite their best efforts to continue their business in Korea such as cutting server costs through using a peer-to-peer model limiting the video to a maximum of 720p, network fees are still significantly expensive — ten times more than in other countries. This led them to the conclusion of ending their business in the country.

The blog continued, stating that this is just a unique situation in South Korea as Twitch will continue their operations in other territories using their services. Meanwhile, Korean streamers who are using Twitch to stream will need to move to a new streaming platform, but Twitch will assist them in this transition and is now reaching out to various livestreaming platforms in Korea. Streamers who will be affected by Twitch Korea’s end of service will be informed during the move-out process.

Twitch Korea will officially close its doors on February 27, 2024 (KST).

Despite being a popular Esports streaming platform, and even with South Korea being a huge gathering site for Esports communities it appears that it was not enough for the streaming platform to maintain its business. Other sources also stated that South Korea already had disputes with other foreign services over these high network fees. But they managed to settle their problems and find a compromise in this situation.