Twitch just opened a new San Francisco headquarters, and it's a gamer's paradise. Take a look inside

Nick BastoneDec 16, 2018, 22:00 IST

Nick Bastone/Business Insider

Twitch invited Business Insider for a first look at its new headquarters in San Francisco, California.
The nine-floor office is a gamer's paradise, with two six-person competitive gaming rooms, two live-streaming rooms, and a full arcade.
"What we really wanted to do was bring Twitch to life," Twitch's Chief Marketing Officer Kate Jhaveri told Business Insider.
Below is a behind-the-scenes look at Twitch's new headquarters.

This week, Amazon-owned live-streaming platform Twitch invited Business Insider for a first-look at its new headquarters in San Francisco, California.

The nine-floor floor office is a gamer's paradise, with two six-person competitive gaming rooms, two live-streaming rooms, and a full arcade (We did confirm halfway through our tour that actual work was getting done).

Twitch's Chief Marketing Officer, Kate Jhaveri, told Business Insider about the thought process behind many of the design decisions.

"What we really wanted to do was bring Twitch to life. Both the feeling of entering Twitch - which sometimes feels like entering another land. We wanted our office to have that feeling," Jhaveri said. "We also wanted to bring to life a lot of the great content that exists on Twitch today - whether that's games the community plays, shows and movies they watch, or art and music that they make every day."

Here's a look at Twitch's new San Francisco headquarters:

See Twitch just opened a new San Francisco headquarters, and it's a gamer's paradise. Take a look inside >>

Twitch's new office is located on California Street in San Francisco's Financial District.

Upon entering, Vault Boy — from the popular "Fallout" franchise — salutes all visitors. As you might expect, there are plenty of video game characters throughout the Twitch office.

Twitch asks visitors to sign a non-disclosure agreement at the front desk when they visit. When we visited, that desk was all decked out with festive stockings and lights for the holidays.

That NDA is the only way to get past these glass gates.

We got right into the good stuff. The new Twitch office has two 6v6 PC gaming rooms, as competitive gaming is a popular pastime for many on the staff.

Popular competitive games among employees are "League of Legends," "Fortnite," "Dota 2," and "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds," otherwise known as "PUBG."

There's even stadium seating in each of the gaming rooms for an audience to watch.

The office has two broadcast rooms for popular streamers who visit the new HQ. Each room has all the audio and video equipment needed for a livestream — there's even a green-screen on the back wall!

Of course, a new tech office wouldn't be complete without a coffee bar.

Something different about Twitch's coffee program is that they don't serve cappuccinos — only "Kappucinos." It's an ode to "Kappa," a popular emoticon used on Twitch that's become the company's unofficial brand mascot.

Another popular emote (which is the term for emojis used in Twitch chat) is right outside the cafe window.

Next to the coffee bar, employees can let off some steam at Flynn's Arcade, named after the arcade in "Tron."

Flynn's includes arcade classics like "Street Fighter," "Donkey Kong," and multiple pinball machines.

There are also consoles, like Nintendo 64 and GameCube, plugged into old school CRT monitors. A Twitch spokesperson said that these monitors are actually better for fighting games, since the response rate is faster than LCD screens.

Board games are available at Flynn's as well.

Something to look out for at Twitch’s new office: characters from Pac-Man. They're hiding everywhere ...

... like on the floor on the way to the kitchen ...

... and hidden inside the snack drawer.

The office has a full commercial kitchen where roughly 2,000 meals are served each day, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Vegetarian and gluten-free options are always available as well.

The day we visited, garlic and sage chicken and roasted Brussels sprouts were being served.

Murals created by Twitch streamers cover many of the office walls. This mural in the dining room area was made by Twitch streamer purplealmonds.

The dining area is also where Twitch holds its all-hands meeting every Thursday. The rest of the week, these screens play live Twitch channels.

Twitch's new office has nine floors. In the elevator bank on each floor, there's a black and white mural that changes as you ascend to the top.

Getting closer ...

... we made it!

Actual work does get done at Twitch. On average, more than a million people are tuning into Twitch at any given moment. It takes plenty of work to make sure things run smoothly.

We came across some employees in the middle of a big meeting.

If employees' work is ever interrupted with computer troubles, not a problem — Twitch has a walk-up IT center.

And if they forget their charger or their headphones, they can head to the Twitch vending machine, swipe their employee badge, and voilá.

All of Twitch's meeting rooms are themed, either as a tribute to gaming or pop-culture that gamers love. This is the "Wayne's World" room.

There's also a Viridian Forest room, a reference from "Pokémon."

Here's the "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" room.

Our favorite was the "Stranger Things" room.

It even came equipped with that creepy rotary phone.

Less-spooky lounges can be found on each of the floors.

Here's another lounge area. This one is beach themed.

Twitch employees can catch some sun on one of three outdoor decks.

There were a couple more things we learned on our tour. First, each new employee gets a balloon on their first day so that other employees know to come up and introduce themselves.

Also, if you haven't guessed by now, Twitch loves purple. Much of the new office features Twitch purple, even down to the exposed wiring!

Fin!

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