Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos

Amazon.com is betting big on video streaming platform for gaming geeks Twitch, announcing today that it is paying $970 million in cash for the San Francisco-based company, which GeekWire’s Taylor Soper describes as the “ESPN of the video game industry.”

That’s the largest acquisition for Amazon since it was founded in 1994, eclipsing big deals for online shoe retailer Zappos, robot systems maker Kiva Systems and and Diapers.com operator Quidsi.

Here’s a look at Amazon.com’s biggest acquisitions over the years, compiled from data by Simply Business.

Twitch, $970 million, video platform for video games, transaction date 2014.

Zappos, $928 million, online shoes, transaction date 2009.

Kiva Systems, $775 million, warehouse robot systems, transaction date 2012.

Exchange.com, $645 million, online book marketplace, transaction date 1999

Quidsi, $545 million, online retailer, transaction date 2010.

Interestingly, Amazon has never made an acquisition of more than $1 billion — putting it at odds with rivals such as Microsoft (which has paid hefty sums for companies like aQuantive, Skype and Nokia) and Facebook (which just this year paid big money for WhatsApp and Oculus).

Twitch, originally started in 2007 as video platform Justin.tv, is certainly a different style of business than any of those. It attracted more than 55 million visitors last month, which means that Amazon is paying roughly $17.60 per user for the company.

That’s far less than Zappos, which was valued $206 per user.

You can see some other high-profile acquisitions and the cost per user in this infographic from Simply Business, published on TechCrunch.

costperuseracquisition
Source: Simple Business. Click on chart for full view.

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