Amazon acquired live-streaming gaming network Twitch Interactive for about $970 million, the two companies announced Monday, Aug. 25.
According to RushHourDaily, the acquisition is the largest deal in the giant online retailer’s 20-year history and will help the company to compete with Apple and Google in the online gaming world, which the two companies now own over 75 percent of all mobile app sales.
The deal amount may change to over $1 billion due to some retention agreements between Amazon and Twitch, which allows viewers message players and others during live play.
“Twitch will further push Amazon into the gaming community while also helping it with video and advertising,” Ben Schachter, Macquarie Research analyst said.
Google was in talks with Twitch for acquisition earlier, but Twitch refused to comment on how the deal fell through. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear instead contacted Amazon and said the retailer’s big revenue and ad sales expertise would help Twitch grow faster.
“The reason why we reached out to Amazon, the reason I thought working for Amazon, having Twitch being a part of Amazon, would be a great idea for us (because) they would give us the resources to pursue these things that we honestly already want to pursue and they’d let us do it faster,” Shear said.
Ethan Kurzweil, a partner at Bessemer Ventures that supports Twitch for a long time, agreed Amazon would help Twitch move quickly.
“They understand the power of engaged developer platforms,” Kurzweil said.
Photo Credit: Twitch
