Amazon's Twitch acquires eSports solutions firm GoodGame

San Francisco-based web designing, event planning and eSports solutions firm GoodGame has officially announced its acquisition by Twitch Interactive Inc., a US-based live-streaming gaming network, which was recently bought by global e-commerce giant Amazon.com.

In an official blog post, Alexander Garfield, CEO, Good Game, said: "eSports has never been bigger than it is today. There’s never been more mainstream interest in our industry, but while it’s exciting, we need to make sure that interest is focused and channeled in the right ways. To keep growing our industry without breaking it, it’s now more than ever necessary for us to all work together."

The transaction amount of the deal remains undisclosed.

As per the announcement, all the employees of GoodGame will be moving to Twitch. "GoodGame could play a role in helping get everyone on the same page. We know what it takes to make them successful and sustainable. But at the same time, up until now our company’s been just as consumed as everyone else by the day-to-day demands of running a business in a very competitive industry - and it’s limited our ability to look out for everyone and think as altruistically as we’d like. That’s why I decided to align us with Twitch," he added.

Further, sharing his thoughts in the blogpost about how the partnership will prove beneficial for everyone involved, Garfield said: "The deal is good for everyone involved. We’ve reserved a portion of the transaction for a player pool, which means that every player currently contracted with GoodGame will receive a small portion of the company’s sale. And as an Amazon subsidiary, we’ll also be able to offer our players other additional benefits to which they didn’t previously have access."

Founded about a decade ago, GoodGame owns professional game teams Evil Geniuses (EG) and Alliance. The company operates its own tournaments, work with personalities and live streamers, produce talk shows and other kinds of eSports content; and also help support third-party teams, players, and tournaments by funding them directly sometimes or by helping them find sponsors and grow their businesses.

Launched in 2011, Twitch currently provides a video platform to both live and on-demand distribution to the entire video game ecosystem - game developers, publishers, media outlets and events. Later, it was acquired by Amazon for $970 million. Amazon also runs an online marketplace in India, which currently lists over 20 million products on its site.