Twitch CEO Dan Clancy says he wants to bring TwitchCon to Asia, but it would need some major changes from the events in Europe and North America.
For streamers and viewers, TwitchCon is a special event that brings the community together, giving fans to meet their favorite content creators and fellow chatters.
While both North America and Europe have hosted the event, Asia has yet to experience one and according to Dan Clancy, Twitch may never actually implement one, at least in the same capacity as the other conventions.
During an IRL steam in Tokyo, the Twitch CEO was asked directly about the possibility of TwitchCon Asia and explained the potential challenges with creating one despite wanting to make it happen.
“We don’t have any plans yet. I want to. Part of what we need to do is figure out how to do it. We need to make sure what we’re doing now works in terms of being sustainable,” he said. “It would probably be something different because if we did a TwitchCon in Tokyo, it’s really a Japanese TwitchCon.”
According to Clancy, language is a big issue. Using TwitchCon Europe as an example, the CEO noted how the events are primarily in English with most of the people who show up able to speak the same language.
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“It needs to fit the country,” he added. “Not just the streamers, also the viewers. It’s unlikely that viewers from Taiwan or Melbourne are gonna travel to Tokyo. It’s gonna be viewed as a Japan TwitchCon and if we went to Australia, it’ll be viewed as an Australian TwitchCon. It’s also a long way!”
Clancy further noted that they wouldn’t be able to do a TwitchCon Asia the same way as NA or EU, simply because the attendance would be a lot smaller.
That said, it does sound like something could be getting cooked up for the future in the form of mini-events in an assortment of countries. As the CEO said, if they did bring TwitchCon to the East, it would need to be “different.”
So far, there are no plans for any sort of Twitch events in Asia, but it’s unlikely that any do end up being booked for South Korea after the Amazon-owned platform shut down in the country. As a result, two Korean streaming services have emerged with plans to compete with Twitch globally later this year.
