Twitch Reveals New Storage Limits And Game Streamers Aren't Pleased

Twitch has been making several moves to cut costs lately, as Amazon doesn’t seem to be getting the return on investment it thought it would, after acquiring the popular streaming service. The tech giant even attempted to leverage the platform to try and make a competitive game hosting service to usurp Steam. These latest changes once again seem to be another attempt to reduce cost of goods sold, but it’s proving rather unpopular with users.

The company’s support account on social media platform X, @TwitchSupport, shared the change coming to storage limits, posting that it’s “implementing a 100 hr storage limit for Highlights & Uploads starting 4/19. This won’t apply to Past Broadcasts (VODs) or clips.” The company claims that this shift in storage policy will only affect 0.5% of content creators, and it will provide weekly reminders to those who are currently exceeding the upcoming limitation.


This new limit will not apply to prior broadcasts, also referred to as VODs, because these are already automatically deleted. Clips created by viewers will also remain safe from any culling. According to Twitch, Highlights haven’t been helpful in getting streamers in front of new eyeballs, with these videos only accounting for less than 0.1% of the hours watched on the service. It makes sense the company would target this feature as it looks to trim the fat from operations.

Gamers have not been happy with this decision of course, with one user on the Twitch subreddit saying, “enshittification strikes again.” Another user brings up how devastating this change will be to the speedrunning community who heavily relies on Highlights, saying that “leaderboards are full of people who haven't been active in a while and a lot of those personal bests will just vanish.”

It's unfortunate that Twitch hasn’t managed to meet the expectations of its parent company, leading to these kinds of decisions. Hopefully creators are able to do what’s necessary to save videos meaningful to them, especially regarding the speedrunning content that is an important part of gaming history.