Twitch announces new storage restrictions threatening gaming archives

The internet is forever … until it is. On Wednesday, Twitch declared that it will implement new restrictions on archived video accents and uploads that users can store in their account. The new rules, which must come into force on April 19, 2025, will set a 100-hour storage limit for preserved videos.

Each account with more than 100 hours of content will have to manually remove the accents and uploads – including the unpublished content that is saved in the channel but not publicly available – or be subject to automated content cleansing that the Twitch will carry out. The company He says It will delete content “with the least views until they are below the limit.”

The streaming service was quite transparent in terms of the fact that money is the reason for the change in its archival rules: “Storage of this content is expensive”, Twitch saidReflecting that the reduction of reserved accents and uploading “helps us to manage resources more efficiently … and to continue to invest in new functions and improvements.”

According to the company, only 0.5% of the platform creators have exceeded the 100-hour storage limit, but this still amounts to a potentially millions of hours of content, which will be unceremoniously deleted, all in favor of the lower row of Twitch. The highlights were introduced as a way to choose the most important moments in their own stream and to treat a reel of their best content.

While Twitch claims that the function was not as effective in achieving commitment as it was hoping, The peer indicates That the Speedrunning community relies on highlights to save record tracks. Summoningsalt, a famous YouTuber that creates documentaries for various speed stories said to Bluski Twitch’s decision to limit storage marks “a really sad day for speed”.

Another Speedrunner, Mrjimmysteel25, tweet This for their community, the highlights have never been in “discovery or commitment” but for preserving history. “People use accents to archive, and you are destroying years of speed and other community history.”

Users can download and retain their own accents, but this is a local storage problem. And the fact that Twitch has imposed this limit as a cost savings remedy leaves the option to come open if the Twitch has to point its bottom line at any moment in the future. It should not be lost in the whole situation that Twitch is owned by Amazon that operates The biggest cloud storage platform in the world. It’s just another reminder that when you trust the history of a corporation, it will only keep as much as it can resort.