Twitch announces the end of Watch Parties

Twitch is once again changing its platform, this time removing a tool used a lot during the pandemic lockdown period: Watch Parties, which allowed streamers to watch Amazon Prime Video series and films together with their audience.

To view the film or series, the Watch Party viewer would need a valid Prime Video subscription.

The end of the Watch Parties on Twitch

Introduced in its beta version in 2019 and officially made available to all of Twitch in April 2020, watch parties brought together streamers and their audiences during the biggest lockdown moments of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Together, the public and the streamer watched films and series available on Prime Video, commenting together on what happened in the plot. According to Variety magazine, almost 20% of American adults participated in some kind of watch party in 2020, but of course, habits have changed to something closer to what was considered “normal” before the pandemic.

According to Twitch itself, this tool has declined significantly in use over the years and the platform decided to discontinue it for good, starting April 2, 2024.

Twitch’s announcement about the end of watch parties was, in some ways, silent. While some streamers receive email messages about the end of the tool, only on the platform’s help page is there any mention of the end of watch parties.

In the small paragraph published on Twitch’s help page, the platform confirmed the end of the tool due to little use in recent years and the use of resources, previously allocated to keeping watch parties running, in other areas of the platform.

Strategic decision?

Of course, the decision to end Watch Parties on Twitch was widely commented on social media, especially on X/Twitter. While some complain about the end of the tool, others point to Amazon’s strategic decision.

The end of watch parties on Twitch will take place exactly two weeks before the debut of the “Fallout” series, highly anticipated by the public, especially gamers, in the Prime Video catalog.

Whether the series premiere had any influence on the decision to end watch parties on Twitch, we really won’t know. For now…