Amazon-owned gaming network Twitch acquires e-sports firm GoodGame

US-based live-streaming gaming network Twitch Interactive, Inc., which was recently bought by e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. for $970 million, has acquired GoodGame, an event management and e-sports solutions firm. The transaction details are not disclosed.

As per the deal, all the employees of GoodgGame will join Twitch.

"E-sports have never been bigger and we need to make sure that interest is focused and channelled in the right ways. That's why it's necessary for us to all work together," said GoodGame's CEO Alex Garfield said in a blog post.

"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.

Founded about a decade ago, GoodGame owns professional game teams Evil Geniuses and Alliance. It also operates tournaments and works with personalities and live-streamers, besides generating talk shows and other kinds of e-sports content. It also supports third-party teams, players, and tournaments. It operates 'team houses' in the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California and Europe where its players live and practise in close quarters.

Launched in 2011 to focus exclusively on live video for gamers, Twitch currently provides a video platform to both live and on-demand distribution to the entire video game ecosystem that comprises of game developers, publishers, media outlets and events. As of last month, it had more than 55 million unique visitors, who viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content produced by more than 1 million broadcasters.

Amazon is the world's largest e-commerce company, which reported a 20 per cent increase in net sales for the third quarter ended September 30, 2014 to $20.58 billion led by growth in its home market but slip deeper into losses. Amazon also runs an online marketplace in India, which currently lists over 20 million products on its site.