Twitch is raising prices for its channel subscriptions for the first time. Just over a month ago, Twitch announced that one in three of its employees will have to go in a 35% layoff spree.
In two rounds of job-cutting fiesta, Amazon’s Twitch laid off about a thousand workers in total. By the way, in 2022, Amazon initiated its own workforce reduction, which affected some 27,000 positions across the company, and parallels with the “Red Wedding” episode from “Game of Thrones” were drawn.
Before that, Twitch announced that it was ceasing its operations in Korea (South Korea, not North Korea, duh!) in February 2024.
The Amazon-owned streaming platform says it has been operating at “significant losses” because of high local costs. The company specifically pointed to the high network fees in the country. Korea introduced legislation that would force major content providers to pay to use networks in the country.
Apparently, Twitch has some money problems. Now, the platform says that “updating prices in several countries” will “help streamer revenue keep pace with rising costs and reflect local currency fluctuations”. The first markets to feel the impact of those changes are the UK, Canada, Australia and Turkey.
As of March 28, Tier 1 subscriptions and gift subs will be more expensive in the UK, Canada and Australia. A base/gift sub is going up from £5 to £6 in the UK, $7 CAD to $8 in Canada and $8 AUD to $9 in Australia. Tier 2 and 3 prices will remain the same in those countries.
In Turkey, Twitch is significantly increasing the price of all three tiers. For instance, a Tier 1 sub will soon cost 43.90 lira ($1.42) instead of 9.90 (32 cents). Don’t be shocked by these figures – the value of the Turkish lira has plummeted over the last decade. However, a 343% jump isn’t funny if you’re the one paying for it.