Twitch boss Dan Clancy has answered questions on the state of the corporate after announcing plans to cut over 500 members of staff.
Earlier this week, Twitch confirmed plans to chop about 35% of workers on high of 400 layoffs final yr. In a blog post, CEO Clancy mentioned “we nonetheless have work to do to rightsize our firm”.
Clancy mentioned regardless of cost-cutting all through 2023, Twitch “remains to be meaningfully bigger than it must be given the dimensions of our enterprise.” In 2023, Twitch paid out over $1 billion to streamers, Clancy confirmed. “So whereas the Twitch enterprise stays sturdy, for a while now the group has been sized primarily based upon the place we optimistically count on our enterprise to be in three or extra years, not the place we’re at immediately.
“As with many different corporations within the tech house, we are actually sizing our group primarily based upon the present scale of our enterprise and conservative predictions of how we count on to develop sooner or later.”
Talking in a follow-up livestream, Clancy mentioned Twitch mother or father firm Amazon had propped up the broadcaster because it stays unprofitable.
“I’ll be blunt: we aren’t worthwhile at this level,” Clancy mentioned. “Amazon has been extraordinarily supportive of Twitch. Huge factor for being sustainable over time is guaranteeing we don’t lose cash. That’s a giant a part of my job as a result of that’s going to be what makes certain we will be right here for the long run.”
Twitch has suffered strain from rivals comparable to Kick, which has snapped up common streamers in large offers. Final yr, Twitch streamer xQC, aka Félix Lengyel, signed a massive multi-year deal with Kick reportedly value round $100 million.
Clancy mentioned Twitch was now not within the enterprise of providing big-money offers to streamers, insisting the economics don’t make sense. “The price of retaining these streamers would have been excess of the income generated from them,” he mentioned. “That’s one thing we’ve been very clear about. We don’t need to try this.”
The fallout of Twitch’s mass layoffs continues, with the San Francisco Chronicle reporting this week that Twitch is in search of to downsize its pricey San Fran headquarters.
After a brutal yr for layoffs, 2024 has began in comparable style, with 1000’s of jobs lower throughout the tech and leisure industries. Most just lately, Discord confirmed plans to let go 17% of its staff, a transfer that impacts 170 individuals throughout the enterprise. Unity was also recently hit with sizeable cuts, which affected round 25% of its workforce.
Picture credit score: Twitch
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
