Twitch suffers high-level staff exodus

A report has found that many high-level staff members at streaming service Twitch have left this year, following an exodus of staff in 2021.

Over 300 employees left Twitch during 2021, and more than 60 have resigned so far this year. This includes high-level employees, such as the chief operating officer, chief content officer, and head of creator development. A report from Bloomberg (paywall) has uncovered the details.

According to the report, seven current and former Twitch employees believe that staff losses will continue, and could even accelerate. They say that the streaming service is losing touch with its community of streamers by focusing on expanding, instead of listening to its creators and improving the service.

Ex-head of creator development Marcus “DJ Wheat” Graham told Bloomberg that the faults leading to Twitch’s current state stemmed from the company’s hiring practices. By drawing from listings on Facebook and Twitter, many of the new hires have no interest in Twitch’s business or culture and are unwilling to learn what made the service so popular in the first place.

Another former employee told Bloomberg that “The customer was the content creator. If you’re not passionate about the product, you’re not really looking at it from the customer’s lens. And so you don’t have the same level of empathy.”

Twitch replied with an emailed statement saying it believes in being experimental and innovative, choosing to use staff who either started as streamers or those who try to integrate themselves into the Twitch culture.

“Serving a community as dynamic as Twitch’s means there isn’t always one clear solution or answer, and as a result we have always believed in being experimental and innovative—even when that means launching a bold product or experiment that might have short-term risks,” read the statement.

The statement also suggests that Twitch has seen improved attrition rates in 2020 and 2021, with more than 500 people hired in the last year.

In other news, Cities: Skylines will be the next free game on the Epic Games Store.