History of Game Streaming: AfreecaTV, Twitch, YouTube to CHZZK
How watching others play became an industry: Let's Plays, AfreecaTV, Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Korea's shift to CHZZK and SOOP after Twitch left.
It used to be common to hear, "Why would you watch someone else play a game?" Today, countless people put on their favorite streamer every evening, laugh together in chat, and cheer them on with donations. Game streaming has become a major industry spanning esports broadcasts, game marketing, and even careers for individual broadcasters.
In this post, we look in order at where game video culture began, how Korea's AfreecaTV and America's Twitch each grew, and how Korea's streaming market changed after Twitch withdrew from the country in 2024.
The Beginnings of "Watching" Games
Content showing gameplay existed on television before internet broadcasting. In the French game channel program Level One (1998–2002), the host played and commented on the opening of games, and Japan's GameCenter CX (started in 2003) became hugely popular with a format in which the host tries to beat a classic game in a single day. In Korea, from the late 1990s, cable channels dedicated to games broadcast StarCraft leagues, introducing the public to the fun of watching games.
On the internet, a format called the "Let's Play" emerged. These are videos focused on showing the player's reactions, commentary, and personality rather than giving information like a walkthrough. It began in the mid-2000s with threads on the forums of the American internet community Something Awful that showed a game's progress through screenshots and text, and the name became established around 2007.
When YouTube appeared in 2005, Let's Plays moved to video. The best-known figure is Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie. He created his channel in 2010 and uploaded horror and action game playthroughs, and on August 15, 2013, he became the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. It was an event that showed game videos were one of the biggest genres on YouTube.
Korea's Pioneer: AfreecaTV and Star Balloons
In live personal internet broadcasting, Korea got an early start. A platform that began a trial service under the name "W" in May 2005 officially launched as "afreeca" in 2006 and was renamed "AfreecaTV" in April 2012. Anyone could go live with just a PC screen and a webcam, without separate broadcasting equipment, and viewers and broadcasters communicated through real-time chat.
AfreecaTV's most distinctive feature was a donation item called the "Star Balloon." When viewers buy Star Balloons with money and gift them to a broadcaster, the broadcaster can convert them into cash. It created early on a revenue structure that let personal broadcasting become a job. At the same time, it had its dark side, such as sensational broadcasts aimed at earning donations being reported as a social problem.
AfreecaTV also expanded into esports, centered on games. In 2015 it acquired GomTV's esports division and studio, turning it into "Freecs Up Studio"; in the same year it took over the operating rights to the StarCraft II league (GSL) and founded the pro team "Afreeca Freecs." Then on October 15, 2024, considering factors such as possible confusion with the African continent, it relaunched under the brand "SOOP."
From Justin.tv to Twitch
Twitch, which became the center of global game streaming, came out of an unexpected experiment. On March 19, 2007, Justin Kan attached a webcam to his hat and launched "Justin.tv," which broadcast his daily life live 24 hours a day. It was so-called "lifecasting." Justin.tv later became a platform where anyone could open a channel and broadcast, and among its many categories, gaming grew fastest.
In June 2011, the company spun off gaming broadcasts into a separate site, "TwitchTV." The name came from "twitch gameplay," meaning gameplay where fast reactions matter. Its growth was extremely rapid.
| Period | Event |
|---|---|
| June 2011 | TwitchTV public beta begins |
| October 2013 | 45 million monthly unique visitors |
| February 2014 | Fourth in US peak internet traffic (after Netflix, Google, and Apple); "Twitch Plays Pokémon" goes viral |
| August 2014 | Justin.tv shuts down; Amazon acquires Twitch for $970 million |
| 2015 | Surpasses 100 million monthly viewers |
| October 2015 | Adds "Creative" category for art and creative streams |
"Twitch Plays Pokémon" in February 2014 showed off the unique fun of streaming. Commands viewers typed in chat became game inputs directly, and tens of thousands of people played Pokémon Red together at once. It was a new kind of entertainment combining games, live broadcasting, and viewer participation.
Twitch was also influenced by Korean broadcasting culture. The "Social Eating" category it introduced on a trial basis in July 2016 was inspired by Korean mukbang and by Korean game broadcasters eating meals in the middle of their streams.
YouTube and the Competitors
Other companies jumped in following Twitch's success.
- YouTube: There were reports in 2014 that it was pursuing an acquisition of Twitch, but Amazon acquired it in the end. YouTube launched a dedicated gaming app, "YouTube Gaming," in August 2015, then shut down the separate app in May 2019 and folded it into a gaming category in the main app. YouTube, already dominant in recorded video, leveraged its strength in offering live streams, replays, and short videos in one place.
- Mixer: A streaming service Microsoft acquired in 2016, with low latency and strong viewer interaction features. It made headlines in 2019 by signing famous Twitch streamers Ninja and shroud, but it failed to grow its market share and shut down on July 22, 2020.
- Kick: A service launched in 2022 that emerged as a Twitch competitor by promoting looser moderation policies and a larger revenue share for streamers.
Mixer's case showed that in the streaming market, simply "bringing over a few famous streamers" isn't enough to hold onto viewers. Viewers tend to stay where their habits, friends, and communities are.
Twitch's Withdrawal from Korea
In the Korean market, Twitch was once the center of game streaming. But the issue of network usage fees held it back. Citing the burden of network costs payable to Korean internet service providers, Twitch limited broadcast quality in Korea to 720p in September 2022 and also blocked VODs (replays) in February 2023.
In the end, Twitch announced on December 6, 2023, that it would end its Korean business, and it shut down its Korean service on February 27, 2024. Korean streamers could no longer earn revenue on Twitch. In February 2024, the Korea Communications Commission fined Twitch 435 million won, saying it had harmed users' interests by lowering service quality without justifiable reason.
The Arrival of CHZZK and SOOP
When news of Twitch's withdrawal broke, many streamers had to find a new platform. Seizing this opening, Naver launched the game streaming service CHZZK. It began a beta service on December 19, 2023, and officially launched on May 9, 2024.
CHZZK was built with a layout similar to Twitch's and with replay and clip features, making it easy for existing Twitch users to move over. Its donation currency, "Cheese," can be paid for with Naver Pay, and it is integrated with Naver Cafe. The existing Naver Game app became the CHZZK app, and a smart TV app followed.
Around the same time, AfreecaTV made a fresh start by rebranding as SOOP. As a result, the Korean game streaming market shifted to a competition among SOOP, CHZZK, and YouTube. Many streamers go live on one platform and upload edited videos and short clips to YouTube.
How Streaming Has Affected the Game Industry
Game streaming has gone beyond mere spectacle to change the game industry itself.
- A new marketing channel: A single playthrough by a popular streamer can make an unknown indie game famous overnight. Developers treat sending games to streamers before launch as an important marketing activity.
- The rise of "watchable games": Games that get big reactions from viewers, games played in groups with lots of unexpected moments, and games that let viewers participate via chat have become popular.
- The growth of esports: As tournament broadcasts moved from TV channels to streaming platforms, anyone in the world could watch matches for free.
- New jobs: Jobs such as streamer, stream editor, and stream manager have emerged. On the other hand, problems such as health issues from long broadcasts, abusive chat, and a race toward sensational content have grown as well.
Summary
The history of game streaming is the process of turning games once played alone into an experience of watching together. From TV game programs to Let's Play videos, live broadcasts on AfreecaTV and Twitch, and the competition between CHZZK and SOOP, the format has kept changing, but the core is the same: people enjoy the time spent laughing and being surprised alongside the person playing, as much as the game itself.