Twitch Pronounces New Storage Limits, Threatening Gamer Archives

The Web is without end…till it isn’t. On Wednesday, Twitch announced that it’ll implement new limits on archived video Highlights and Uploads that customers can retailer on their account. The brand new guidelines, set to take impact on April 19, 2025, will set a 100-hour storage restrict on saved movies.

Any account with greater than 100 hours of content material might want to manually take away highlights and uploads—together with unpublished content material that’s saved to the channel however not publicly accessible—or be topic to an automatic purge of content material that Twitch will perform. The corporate says it’ll delete content material “with the least views, till they’re below the restrict.”

The streaming service was fairly clear about the truth that cash is the explanation for the change to its archive guidelines: “The storage of this content material is dear,” Twitch said, reasoning that slicing down on saved Highlights and Uploads “helps us handle sources extra effectively…and proceed to put money into new options and enhancements.”

In response to the corporate, simply 0.5% of creators on the platform have exceeded the 100-hour storage restrict, however that also quantities to doubtlessly tens of millions of hours of content material that might be unceremoniously deleted, all to profit Twitch’s backside line. Highlights had been launched as a approach for creators to select crucial moments of their very own stream and curate a reel of their finest content material.

Whereas Twitch claims that the function hasn’t been as efficient at driving engagement because it had hoped, The Verge points out that the speedrunning neighborhood has relied on Highlights to avoid wasting record-breaking runs. SummoningSalt, a well known YouTuber who creates documentaries on numerous speedrunning histories said on Bluesky that Twitch’s resolution to restrict storage marks a “actually unhappy day for speedrunning.”

One other speedrunner, MrJimmysteel25, tweeted that for his or her neighborhood, highlights had been by no means about “discovery or engagement” however about preserving historical past. “Folks use highlights to archive, and also you’re destroying YEARS of speedrunning and different communites historical past.”

Customers can obtain and save their very own Highlights, however this presents a neighborhood storage downside. And the truth that Twitch has imposed this restrict as a way of value financial savings leaves open the chance that an extra crunch may come if, at any level sooner or later, Twitch must juice its backside line. It shouldn’t be misplaced on this complete scenario that Twitch is owned by Amazon, which operates the largest cloud storage platform on this planet. It’s simply one other reminder that if you belief historical past to an organization, it’ll solely protect as a lot as it may well monetize.