Crooked broadcast: Twitch is preparing to leave Russia
The Twitch service may leave the Russian Federation, Izvestia found out. The world's largest streaming platform has introduced additional restrictions for Russians — now both viewers and content authors cannot support high-resolution FullHD and 4K (1080p and 1440p). Representatives of the site referred to the inexpediency of commercial support for the region. The platform did the same before leaving other countries. This may lead to a decrease in the income of streamers from the Russian Federation, experts say.
What's going on with Twitch in Russia
Problems with Twitch for Russian streamers are already a systemic situation, at first monetization restrictions were introduced, said Yulia Zagitova, founder of Breaking Trends, secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia. All these steps make the service less suitable for domestic users to earn money.
— This also carries risks for Twitch. Firstly, the departure of the authors is a decrease in content on the platform. Plus, Twitch is losing some of its audience, including its paying audience. For bloggers, the consequences of technical problems are obvious: if viewers are uncomfortable watching the broadcast, they leave. Quality drawdowns, lags, the inability to tune in or subscribe — all this affects audience retention," she said.
As a result, many streamers are already switching to alternative platforms, such as YouTube, VKontakte, or Trovo. If the situation does not change, Twitch risks permanently losing most of the Russian-speaking community, Yulia Zagitova noted.
On the night of June 24, Twitch removed the ability for users of the platform with Russian IP addresses to watch broadcasts in high quality. Less clear resolutions of 240p, 480p and 720p remained available.
— Russian streamers have numerous difficulties. Moreover, this blow to the quality of broadcasts is almost more serious than the refusal of monetization. Because streamers can monetize their content at the expense of external advertisers by signing a contract with them directly, but reducing the quality of broadcasts seriously worsens the perception of viewers," said Yaroslav Meshalkin, managing partner of the Heads'made digital communications agency.
According to IT columnist Sergey Pomortsev, Twitch may officially leave Russia. As an example of such a departure, the specialist recalled that according to a similar scenario, the platform left South Korea in February 2024.
The vast majority of viewers watch the broadcast in maximum quality if their Internet connection allows it, said the head of the GoodGame streaming platform.Ru Mikhail Mirchuk. According to him, this is over 70% of the total number of viewers.
At the same time, if you watch broadcasts from your phone, the overall quality change will not be very noticeable, explained Vladimir Zykov, director of the Association of Professional Users of Social Networks and Messengers.
How the platform undermines the trust of Russians
Questions to the management of the Twitch service and its moderation service began to arise in February 2022, Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, recalled. Then the site began massively blocking streamers who were trying to tell their audience about the situation in Donbas. Later it turned out that the heads of the service's moderation service openly support the Kiev regime (thus violating the principle of neutrality prescribed in the terms of use of the resource). According to him, the platform began to be actively used to collect donations for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and all attempts by the regulator to establish a working dialogue were ignored. Nevertheless, access to the platform was not limited.
— The decline in Twitch functionality that Russian users are currently seeing is mainly due to an economic factor: the platform does not earn money in Russia, so it has to reduce its costs here. Why doesn't it completely leave our market, as Spotify did? The answer is very simple: Like YouTube, Twitch is involved in an information war with the population of our country," the MP said.
Twitch's decision to limit the quality of broadcasts for Russian users is a step aimed at ousting the Russian—speaking segment from the global platform. Under the pretext of technical limitations, the service deprives millions of viewers of the quality of content they are used to. This is no longer just digital discrimination, it is direct pressure on creators and users based on nationality, State Duma Deputy Anton Nemkin emphasized in a conversation with Izvestia.
— As a result, conscientious authors suffer, many of whom have been developing the platform for many years and attracting millions of viewers to it. Such an attitude cannot remain unanswered. It's time for Russian streamers and viewers to make a choice in favor of alternatives, primarily domestic ones. Twitch itself is deliberately losing trust and the market, and the consequences for the platform will be long—term," the MP said.
Ultimately, Twitch only accelerates the process of the sovereignty of the Russian Internet, undermines its own authority and narrows opportunities in one of the world's largest markets, said Ilya Gogua, a journalist, expert at ROCIT, and expert at the Workshop of New Media.
The limitation in quality will surely lead to an outflow of the audience to other platforms, and along with them, advertisers, says Twitch streamer Roman Dorogavtsev. At the same time, he is convinced that the service will not completely leave the Russian Federation, since our country is in fourth place in terms of the number of viewers on the platform. The service simply will not be able to afford to give this share to competitors, he concluded.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
