High-profile Korean YouTuber switches to Twitch

YouTube star Na Dong-hyun, better known as “Great Library,” began streaming his shows on Twitch on Monday, steering many of his fans to the game-streaming platform.

Na, who has some 1.9 million YouTube subscribers, is one of the most recognizable names on YouTube in Korea. However, he announced Sunday that his platform of choice for live streaming will be Twitch.

“Using the YouTube live platform for two years, I experienced many troubles. There were some features that didn’t work out, and many inconveniences. That’s why I decided to change my live broadcast platform,” Na said. Other YouTube streamers also complained about alleged frequent buffering and chat delays during live broadcasts.

Twitch Korea, which is lagging behind YouTube, was quick to announce that the high-profile YouTuber has changed the platform.

Na said he aims to help expand the user base of Twitch, which has fewer users than video giant YouTube. However, he will still continue to upload edited versions of his live broadcasts on his YouTube channel.

Following Na’s switch, the Twitch mobile app saw a jump in the number of downloads. The app’s ranking on iOS App Store in Korea jumped from 190th on Sunday to 107th on Monday, marking its highest rank since November.

During his first Twitch streaming on Monday, many viewers claimed they downloaded the mobile app to watch Na’s broadcasts. Through the voice chat, one of the fans said “I downloaded Twitch app only because you were moving here!”

It took a little while for Na to get familiar with Twitch-only features, but he soon found his feet and began to casually communicate with the viewers. His first broadcast had drawn about 300,000 views as of Tuesday.



By Lee Tae-hee (taeheelee@heraldcorp.com)