Twitter has officially announced that they would no longer be supporting the free access to Twitter API and instead will be replacing it with a paid version.

The support termination will be on February 9^th, 2023 and as mentioned, will be replaced with a paid basic tier. The tweet also states that more details on this matter will be delivered next week.

Of course, this announcement was not welcomed, to say the least. Many voiced out their frustration towards the sudden notice as mentioned by user @dougblackjr and all around dissatisfaction for this change.

There are tons of consequences for switching the the API to paid version. Sites that uses twitters to for login will be affected and you can say goodbye to all those funny and useful bot accounts in Twitter. RIP daily Ace Attorney Quotes.

API, to put it into simpler terms, is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other.  Twitter offers two of this; the REST API that helps developers access Twitter’s data and the search API that provides methods for developers to interact with Twitter’s search feature.

Putting it in gaming terms, it is this very API that lets you bind your online game accounts with Twitter. For example, games like Genshin Impact and Arknights allows players to log into the game with their Twitter account.

Since  the free API will no longer be supported, developers would have to pay if they want their game to still be using Twitter to bind players’ accounts.

Although depending on the developer, they could either just remove the Twitter binding from their game entirely or pay Twitter to continue the feature.

Nevertheless, if it was the former, it would be very unlikely for them to remove the feature without notifying their players first. However as a precautionary measure, make sure to bind your account on something besides Twitter to avoid the risk of losing your accounts forever.