Amazon to buy Twitch!

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I am a sinner.
Sep 11, 2013
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It looks as if Amazon is continuing it's push into streaming media and video games. It's becoming more and more likely that Amazon is in the final stages of acquiring Twitch. Not sure if it's just Twitch or the entire Justin.TV/Twitch Media company. Google was thought to have all but finalized purchasing Twitch. In the coming days Twitch's acquisition should become more clear.
 
Saw this on LinkedIn and was wondering how long it'd take for threads to start popping up. Definitely interesting. I thought Google was a lock for this.
 
Amazon Buys Twitch For $970 Million [UPDATE]
http://kotaku.com/reports-amazon-to-buy-twitch-for-over-1-billion-1626564744


UPDATE (4:02pm): It's official: Amazon has purchased Twitch, following months of rumors that Google was looking to buy the video streaming company.
Amazon says the exact purchase price will be $970 million in cash.
Here's the press release from Twitch, which also put up a message on their website today:
SEATTLE—August 25, 2014—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Twitch Interactive, Inc., the leading live video platform for gamers. In July, more than 55 million unique visitors viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content on Twitch produced by more than 1 million broadcasters, including individual gamers, pro players, publishers, developers, media outlets, conventions and stadium-filling esports organizations.
"Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month – from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community."
"Amazon and Twitch optimize for our customers first and are both believers in the future of gaming," said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. "Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community, and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world."
Twitch launched in June 2011 to focus exclusively on live video for gamers. Under the terms of the agreement, which has been approved by Twitch's shareholders, Amazon will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Twitch for approximately $970 million in cash, as adjusted for the assumption of options and other items. Subject to customary closing conditions, the acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2014.
 
I like it. I already watch all my Twitch on Fire TV, so if this helps improve that I am happy.
 
This reminds me of "Silicon Valley". Its as if Google or Apple could sneeze at something and suddenly there is a multi-million dollar bidding war.

Better Amazon than Google but only for the fact Twitch would have given Google an unstoppable monopoly over user generated video. At least now Amazon is positioned to be a threat to YouTube. I just hope this doesn't spell too many changes to Twitch or Prime subscription fees.
 
DriedMangoes said:
I don't even know how 970 million in cash looks like.
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Having worked with some segments of Amazon's businesses for the last 12 years, I just don't trust them. The other shoe is going to drop at some point, they can't go on forever with profits below expectations, endlessly burning cash. My guess is that all of these services and new businesses they've acquired or purchased are going to come in under the Amazon Prime umbrella at some point and they will slowly start turning the screws on content providers and publishers, and possibly on customers too (for example, requiring Amazon Prime membership to broadcast on twitch for content providers, and/or requiring prime membership to view more than X minutes of broadcast).

They're getting too big IMO
 
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penguinpig said:
wonder why google had cold feet.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac...after-google-balks-due-to-antitrust-concerns/

Google was unable to close the deal, said sources familiar with the talks, because it was concerned about potential antitrust issues that could have come with the acquisition. The Mountain View, Calif. company already owns YouTube, the world’s most-visited content streaming site, which competes with Twitch to broadcast and stream live or on-demand video game sessions. One source noted that because of the concerns, Google and Twitch could not come to an agreement on the size of a potential breakup fee in case the deal did not go through.
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Z A C K said:
Yeah, that's pretty weird actually. Did they just give them a brief case or something?
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Well, they don't mean actual paper cash. They just mean actual money in a bank account that can be transferred. Deals can also involve stock shares too, so they say cash to differentiate b/w the two.
 
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Mr Bigglesworth said:
Having worked with some segments of Amazon's businesses for the last 12 years, I just don't trust them. The other shoe is going to drop at some point, they can't go on forever with profits below expectations, endlessly burning cash. My guess is that all of these services and new businesses they've acquired or purchased are going to come in under the Amazon Prime umbrella at some point and they will slowly start turning the screws on content providers and publishers, and possibly on customers too (for example, requiring Amazon Prime membership to broadcast on twitch for content providers, and/or requiring prime membership to view more than X minutes of broadcast).

They're getting too big IMO
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Yep I dropped my Prime account once they raised the price. I rarely shopped there anymore anyways and didn't find the other features they added worth it.
 
Rover said:
Well, they don't mean actual paper cash. They just mean actual money in a bank account that can be transferred. Deals can also involve stock shares too, so they say cash to differentiate b/w the two.
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Probably true, but I like imaging them handing over a brief case of almost 1 billion dollars more.
 
Viktor said:
Yep I dropped my Prime account once they raised the price. I rarely shopped there anymore anyways and didn't find the other features they added worth it.
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Take what is happening with Hachette for example. it's been known for a while in the publishing business that Amazon wants to destroy publishers - they would much rather authors sign with them directly. They are using their dominant status as retailer to try to force publishers to give up profit to meet Amazon's discount demands. So while they claim they are just trying to keep prices low for their customers, what they're really trying to do is take over book publishing and using their weight as the top sales channel to do so, by crushing the publishers' profit margins.

MS tried this in the 90s, using Windows as the vehicle to force IE on everyone. We'll see how it works for Amazon but I suspect the anti-trust pushback will kick up within the next few years.
 
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Mr Bigglesworth said:
Take what is happening with Hachette for example. it's been known for a while in the publishing business that Amazon wants to destroy publishers - they would much rather authors sign with them directly. They are using their dominant status as retailer to try to force publishers to give up profit to meet Amazon's discount demands. So while they claim they are just trying to keep prices low for their customers, what they're really trying to do is take over book publishing and using their weight as the top sales channel to do so, by crushing the publishers' profit margins.

MS tried this in the 90s, using Windows as the vehicle to force IE on everyone. We'll see how it works for Amazon but I suspect the anti-trust pushback will kick up within the next few years.
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That may be (and probably is) true, but it's hard for me to hate on them when an item I purchased today will be here by Friday at no extra cost.
 
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