Teams from Japan and Iran competed in the Asian Games Esports Demonstration Event Pro Evolution Soccer Final match at Mahaka Square on Sept. 1, 2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Photo by Yifan Ding/Getty Images)
China blocked Twitch just as the esports streaming service had soared to a No. 3 ranking among free apps in the world’s most populous country.
The 2018 Asian Games, co-hosted by the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang from Aug. 26 through Sept. 2, introduced esports for the first time as a demonstration sport. The increased profile of esports at the Games drove a surge of Twitch downloads in China, especially because state-run broadcaster CCTV did not air the competition. Mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower told The Verge that Twitch downloads were up by a factor of 23 during the last week of August.
The country’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, does not appear to have commented on the ban. Twitch joins Facebook and Twitter on the list of popular social sites currently prohibited in China. Amazon, which owns Twitch, is, however, still available in the country.
SportTechie Takeaway
This is a significant blow for Twitch, as the service loses access to a huge market in China’s nearly 1.4 billion people. China has recently blamed video games for an epidemic of poor eyesight in the country, so this move would seem to be in line with that claim. The outright prohibition of Twitch, though, seems to be a rather drastic remedy.
