Twitch, the popular site where people go to watch other people play video games, has lost at least six top employees since the beginning of the year, including the chief operating officer, chief content officer and head of creator development. The exodus began last year, when more than 300 employees left, and so far 60-plus people have walked out the door in 2022, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
The departures will probably continue, if not accelerate, according to seven current and former employees, because they say Twitch is losing touch with its north star: a community of about 8.5 million streamers whose gaming exploits attract an average of 140 million people to the platform each month. Long a haven for game streamers to make a living doing what they love, Twitch in recent years has focused on expanding and finding new ways of making money from its streamers, rather than listening to and understanding them, these people say. That strategy, they say, has alienated some hard-core users and the employees who serve them—the very people whose ingenuity and enthusiasm that made Twitch a success.
