Amazon's Twitch cuts over 500 jobs in attempt to be profitable

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in an email to employees that even with cost cuts and growing more efficient, the platform is still larger than needed.

Twitch, the video game streaming platform acquired by Amazon a decade ago for close to $1 billion, is laying off more than 500 employees as the company tries to turn the tremendously expensive division profitable.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy in an email to employees said that even with cost cuts and growing efficiency, the platform "is still meaningfully larger than it needs to be given the size of our business."

"For some time now the organization has been sized based upon where we optimistically expect our business to be in 3 or more years, not where we’re at today," Clancy wrote.

Amazon purchased Twitch Interactive in 2014 for $970 million as it looked for a way to take part in video gaming’s growth as an online spectator sport.

Twitch is a multi-channel online network built for a generation of people raised with video games and like to watch some of the best gamers in the world as many people watch professional sports.