Twitch lays off a third of its staff as part of company-wide rightsizing

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has announced plans to reduce the company's headcount by just over 500 employees, a roughly 35 percent reduction in staff. The executive shared an internal email sent to employees earlier today outlining the changes, which are needed to help rightsize the company. Clancy said that despite efforts to cut costs over the last year, it has become clear that Twitch is still larger than it needs to be given the size of the business.

Put another way, Twitch over the last three years has been sized optimistically based on where they want the business to be versus where it actually sits today. That's no longer sustainable and like many others in the tech sector, they are resizing based on a more conservative prediction of future growth.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy admits Twitch isn't profitable pic.twitter.com/u0Un97dJGj

– Streamer Clips That Go Hard (@SCThatGoHard) January 12, 2024

Clancy said the decision had to be made to ensure they can continue to serve streamers sustainably without impacting their ability to support them. Last year along, the company paid out more than $1 billion to streamers.

Twitch is wasting no time in getting the ball rolling. Clancy said emails will be sent "in the next few minutes" outlining what will happen next, both for those affected by the restructuring and employees that still have a job. Clancy also said he was disappointed that news of the cuts leaked yesterday, leading to undue anxiety over the past several hours.

Twitch is one of those concepts that I'm still surprised actually took off. Never in a million years would I have guessed there would be a market for video game live streaming, or that it would be successful. That there is a subset of people who would rather volunteer to watch someone else play a game instead of playing it themselves continues to blow my mind. Of course, I also didn't envision social media and influencers being a thing and those play hand in hand with Twitch, so there's that.

Clancy apologized to everyone leaving Twitch and thanked them for their hard work to help build the platform to this point.

Image credit: Stanley Li, Rdne Stock

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/101474-twitch-lays-off-third-staff-part-company-wide.html

 

[Superconductor]

No real loss

 

[jonny888]

"Never in a million years would I have guessed there would be a market for video game live streaming, or that it would be successful. That there is a subset of people who would rather volunteer to watch someone else play a game instead of playing it themselves continues to blow my mind."

Why does anyone watch football or any other sport they could go outside and play themselves? Concept is exactly the same.

 

[nnguy2]

"Never in a million years would I have guessed there would be a market for video game live streaming, or that it would be successful. That there is a subset of people who would rather volunteer to watch someone else play a game instead of playing it themselves continues to blow my mind."

Why does anyone watch football or any other sport they could go outside and play themselves? Concept is exactly the same.

came here to say exactly that.

Also don't forget fantasy football (or any other fantasy sports league) is Dungeons and Dragons for jocks

 

[yRaz]

came here to say exactly that.

Also don't forget fantasy football (or any other fantasy sports league) is Dungeons and Dragons for jocks

As someone who does both, fantasy sports leagues are more based around gambling pools. DnD is more about getting a dragon drunk, seducing it, making it join your party then have the DM go ,"how the hell did that happen...."

Yes, that actually happened and it's why I'm not allowed to play as a Bard anymore.

 

[Nobina]

"Never in a million years would I have guessed there would be a market for video game live streaming, or that it would be successful. That there is a subset of people who would rather volunteer to watch someone else play a game instead of playing it themselves continues to blow my mind."

Why does anyone watch football or any other sport they could go outside and play themselves? Concept is exactly the same.

It's not even games people are watching on Twitch. Most popular channels as I see it are influencer type people that would sell their own mother for clout and wh*res that came from cam sites.

 

[jonny888]

It's not even games people are watching on Twitch. Most popular channels as I see it are influencer type people that would sell their own mother for clout and wh*res that came from cam sites.

For sure it's gained that element to it over time. But it's origins when it was just games was still enough to get it started.

 

[passwordistaco]

Is this a case of the author writing the article, and the editor writing the headline?

Because the headline says "lays off", which is what it is.

The article uses about every euphemism possible to avoid "lay off". "Rightsize", "reduce headcount", "optimize", "resize", "no longer sustainable".

I would guess the author has an MBA.

 

[RandomWAN]

As someone who does both, fantasy sports leagues are more based around gambling pools. DnD is more about getting a dragon drunk, seducing it, making it join your party then have the DM go ,"how the hell did that happen...."

Yes, that actually happened and it's why I'm not allowed to play as a Bard anymore.

Proper D&D is about upsetting the DM's planned scenario(s) as much as possible.

 

[bviktor]

"Rightsizing" lol, what a true slap in the face.

 

[toooooot]

Really interesting. These platforms push so much advertisement on a viewer that they are already barely usable.
How much is my question. How much more ad videos an average viewer has to see for Twich to become self sufficient?

 

[vimann]

" Clancy also said he was disappointed that news of the cuts leaked yesterday, leading to undue anxiety over the past several hours. "

Yeah, cause suddenly getting fired over e-mail doesn't cause any distress to anyone.