Twitch's 2024 Is Off To A Bad Start
Last year was chaotic for Twitch, even by the streaming platform's standards. A number of major earners for the platform (including the likes of Amouranth, xQc, and NickMercs) signed lucrative deals with rival platform Kick, and though these contracts were non-exclusive, they split viewer attention from Twitch. The sudden popularity of the "implied nudity meta" — in which streamers positioned their camera or censor bars in a way that made them appear naked on-stream — led to a great deal of confusion and frustration from viewers and creators. Twitch's sudden policy changes didn't help matters much, either, bringing 2023 to a wacky and often exhausting close. Now, not even two weeks into 2024, Twitch has announced some dire shakeups at the company.
On January 10, Twitch released a statement titled "A Difficult Update About Our Workforce," in which Twitch revealed that a large percentage of its staff is being laid off. In the interest of transparency, the blog post reproduced an email sent from Twitch President Dan Clancy to all employees of the company. "As you all know, we have worked hard over the last year to run our business as sustainably as possible," the email read. "Unfortunately, we still have work to do to rightsize our company and I regret having to share that we are taking the painful step to reduce our headcount by just over 500 people across Twitch." This accounts for a little over a third of the company's staff, which raises a tremendous number of questions. For instance, why is this happening? And how are Twitch's competitors reacting to the news?
Twitch explains its layoffs
Though some have wondered if the layoffs were partially due to the backlash experienced by Twitch in the latter part of 2023, this is apparently not the case. According to Dan Clancy's email, the downsizing at Twitch is being done to scale the size of the company to the amount of business it's actually doing. Clancy explained, "it has become clear that our organization is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business. Last year we paid out over $1 billion to streamers. So while the Twitch business remains strong, for some time now the organization has been sized based upon where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we're at today."
While this is not the kind of message that anybody wants to get from their boss, the frustration felt by Twitch's employees was further exacerbated by the fact that news of the layoffs had leaked to the press nearly a full day before Clancy's email went out. As expected, work chats among Twitch employees became heated in the hours leading up to the official announcement, with staff demanding answers from HR and a general sense of unease seeping into conversations.
Speaking with Aftermath, former and current employees expressed mixed feelings toward the layoffs. One employee who lost their job still expressed their belief in the company, saying, "I think Dan is a really great CEO and understands what direction Twitch needs to take to be around for years to come." Others were less optimistic, with one fired staff member explaining, "We were already operating with a significant amount of workload prior to the previous layoffs ... I have no idea how folks are going to make it work now."
The public reacts to Twitch layoffs
In the wake of this devastating announcement from Twitch, former and current employees have posted messages expressing their disappointment and their condolences to those impacted by the layoffs. Some of the fired workers are asking their mutuals if they can point them in the direction of a new job, while many of the employees who remain with the company are offering to help their comrades get back on their feet. Twitch staff aren't the only ones to express well wishes, as a number of content creators have likewise posted messages of support. For instance, CohhCarnage chimed in to put things in perspective for streamers. "With 500+ people being laid off (1/3 of the entire company) there is almost zero doubt this will dramatically affect our lives on the platform," he wrote.
Gut wrenching to hear about @twitch layoffs. 😭
With 500+ people being laid off (1/3 of the entire company) there is almost zero doubt this will dramatically affect our lives on the platform.
Best of vibes to those being hit. Hope you land on your feet quickly. 👊
— Cohh Carnage (@CohhCarnage) January 10, 2024
Not everyone has been quite so supportive, however, with some viewing these latest developments as the beginning of the end for Twitch. In a speculative post concerning the layoffs, Jake Lucky pondered how the wider streaming industry could be impacted "if Twitch somehow implodes." In response, Kick co-founder Bijan Tehrani posted, "Kick will eventually buy twitch." It's unclear at this time whether or not Tehrani is serious about this statement or if it was posted as a bit of dark humor. One thing is for sure, though: All eyes will remain on Twitch as it goes into an less-stable 2024.