Amazon has announced Monday that it will be acquiring Twitch Interactive, Inc., the leading platform for live video streaming popularly used by gamers.

Terms of agreement pertaining to the acquisition have been approved by Twitch's shareholders, reports WSJ, which include Amazon receiving all outstanding shares of the company for approximately $970 million in cash. The amount is adjusted to reflect the assumption of other options that could be included in the deal.

Over 55 million visitors have visited Twitch to watch more than 15 billion minutes of gaming content in July of this year. The content is produced by a variety of game broadcasters, including individual gamers, game publishers and developers, professional players, media outlets, and e-sports organizations.

"Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month -- from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

"Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community," Bezos added.

Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch, posted a statement on their website. "Today, I'm pleased to announce we've been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. We're keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon's support we'll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch."

Google had previously been in talks with Twitch, according to ReCode, but failed to close the deal. Amazon's efforts on entering the video niche have previously been along the lines of becoming another Netflix model, by building a library of movies, TV shows, and original series that are available for streaming.

By acquiring Twitch, Amazon is now able to provide user-generated video content very much like YouTube.