On December 5, 2023, Twitch Korea released an update to the community. Twitch Korea throughout recent years has lowered its quality and features such as reducing the quality of streams to 750p as well as getting rid of the VOD system. Twitch has made the hard decision that as of February 27, 2024 KST, Korea Twitch will come to an end.
The cost of Twitch specifically in Korea is currently because of new laws. Twitch Korea has looked for many possible solutions to reduce the cost, but unfortunately, none was realistically viable. The ISP’s petitioning the Korean government for changing the web traffic has made network fees for Korea 10 times higher than most countries making the cost too expensive to avoid losses.
After the February 27, 2024 date, viewers will no longer be able to purchase Twitch products and streamers will not be able to receive payment or generate revenue. Twitch Korea has sent an email to all streamers and viewers in Korea who will be affected
Korea already has a popular streaming service, AfreecaTV and some streamers have already started to migrate over to YouTube streaming as well.
Courtesy of Twitch Korea
Twitch Korea has already laid down an outline for the timeline that they will be holding with the dissolution of the Korean branch of Twitch. On February 27, 2024 KST, or February 26, 2024 PT streamers who have their country of residence set to South Korea (during onboarding) will no longer be able to monetize their Twitch. On the same day, viewers in Korea cannot make purchases in Korea on Twitch. This means that streamers will no longer see ads on their channels. Active subs will also be turned to ‘never renew’ and even if gifted a sub to a viewer of Korea of a streamer outside of Korea will not be allowed.
March 16, 2024 (KST), March 15, 2024 (PT), is the next checkpoint. On this date, the final payment will be made to any streamer who has their country set to Korea (during onboarding). For Affiliates, the final payment will be sent even if the amount is less than the normal threshold of 50 USD (100 USD for wire transfer) as long as the fee is not more than the total amount being sent. Viewers in Korea need to request a refund for their purchased bits by March 27, 2024 (KST) to have that go through! To do that there is a form for viewers in Korea to fill out. The last date listed is that on June 4, 2024 (KST), or June 3 (PT), Affiliate and Partners will be canceled from Twitch accounts.
Twitch Korea is suggesting for streamers to make the transition earlier rather than later. They suggest “To ensure a smooth community transition, streamers are recommended to broadcast simultaneously with other streaming platforms and share new channel links” to their community. This being said it is still a huge loss for the Korean content creators who have cultivated their following and community on Twitch. Many content creators might fall back into Afreeca or try out the new Naver streaming platform, though both will be less foreigner-friendly than Twitch.
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