Twitch has been through a lot of turmoil recently, including a big round of layoffs last year, but this is not a good sign for what is the primary video streaming platform for gaming. Of course Twitch has expanded well beyond games at this point, but gaming itself hasn't migrated off the platform.
The CEO's explanation is that Twitch was too large for its current business and had been scaled for growth that never game. That sounds like a lot of companies that scaled up during the pandemic and for some reason thought that the growth would continue forever. Of course unlike a lot of those companies Amazon is incredibly solvent so this is a choice, and the choice is to cut over a third of the staff of a company that already seems understaffed in a number of areas like moderation.
In addition to feeling sympathy for the workers affected I worry both about streamers and the viability of the platform long term. Amazon does not seem very committed to gaming and Twitch clearly has not been a profit center if it needs cuts this deep. Just bad news all around.
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