No sooner had the new GTA 6 Extended Look gone online on Thursday evening than Twitch completely gave out. Web player, chat, and video playback failed for thousands of users – precisely while half of Twitch was eagerly awaiting the reactions of major streamers to the long-anticipated trailer.
Why Did Twitch Go Down After the GTA 6 Trailer?
About an hour after Rockstar Games released the Extended Look, Twitch itself confirmed a "Major Outage" on its status page affecting web, chat, and video playback. On Downdetector, the number of outage reports surged dramatically: within the first 30 minutes, the portal registered over 7,000 reports, peaking at more than 17,000. Streaming itself – meaning broadcasting livestreams – largely remained functional, according to Twitch, but viewers who couldn't load streams were primarily affected. While Twitch has not yet officially confirmed what exactly triggered the outages, the timing coinciding with the GTA 6 rush is more than conspicuous.
Who Actually Showed the Trailer on Twitch?
The Extended Look initially premiered exclusively on Netflix – those without a subscription there relied on reaction streams. These clearly attracted masses: big names like IShowSpeed and Kai Cenat reacted live to the trailer, and their streams likely accounted for a significant portion of the sudden surge in viewers on Twitch. After an exclusivity window of about six hours, the clip then became widely available outside of Netflix, including on Rockstar's official YouTube channel.
How Does the Twitch Outage Fit into the GTA 6 Hype?
Twitch wasn't the only platform experiencing issues that evening: Netflix itself also buckled under the load for a brief moment, as we reported in our report on the Netflix outage. The fact that two major streaming platforms struggled on the same evening demonstrates how out of control the expectations for GTA 6 have become – we had already summarized all broadcast times for the premiere in advance because it was foreseeable how massive the interest would be. The first GTA 6 trailer in late 2023 already set viewership records, and apparently, the community hasn't calmed down since. For players, the outage itself changes nothing – anyone who missed the trailer can now easily find it on YouTube and the official GTA 6 website.
Did you watch the trailer via stream, or did you also encounter the Twitch outage? Tell us about your experiences in the comments!
Comments (0)
No comments yet — be the first to share your take.