There is a new record holder for the most concurrent viewers on Twitch. Not only is David “TheGrefg” Martinez now the owner of the highest individual viewed stream on Twitch, he absolutely dwarfed the old record, which was held by famous content creator Ninja.
Over two years ago, Tyler 'Ninja' Blevins broke the record for concurrent views with around 650,000 viewers while playing Fortnite. While many games have peaked since then, nothing has come over the top of Ninja's magical night, until now.
Spanish Twitch streamer TheGrefg was hosting a stream to celebrate his collaboration with Fortnite, and the fact that TheGrefg was getting an Icon Series Fortnite skin in the game. The skin itself seems to have been inspired by Dragon Ball Z. Of course, Fortnite is no stranger to crossovers with TV shows, comics, movies, superheroes, and more.
In the case of other Icon Series reveals (other streams/content creators who received in-game skins), some of them were done via Twitter posts, like with Loserfruit, for example. Others were done creatively, like Lachlan getting an Icon Series skin via an in-game tournament. But for TheGrefg, his announcement came with the fact that he would reveal his Icon Series skin inside of his own stream. The result was a stream in which 2.4 million concurrent viewers stopped by to watch, blasting past the previous record.
Twitch was certainly in the news recently for 2020 for odd reasons, including plenty of DMCA bans. Of course, 2021 started with a massive Twitch ban of President Trump himself, so surprise suspensions don't seem to have stopped. But the record-breaking news of TheGrefg is a different kind of info dump, perhaps a lighter and more joyous kind that brings an upbeat nature to streaming in general.
What is quite perhaps the most remarkable about the new record is that it, again, is Fortnite leading the charge. From 2018 to 2021, no game could top what Ninja put forth with Fortnite. And now, almost three years later, TheGrefg nearly quadrupled the record with the same cartoony and loved battle royale. Other games of the same genre, like Call of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends have taken up their arms, but none have gotten close to those numbers. Other games that are perhaps more of the party genre or of a different ilk, like Fall Guys or Among Us have catapulted content creators to fame, but still, the Twitch records have not fallen. It is Fortnite, in part thanks to some creative marketing, that maintains its position at the top.