At more than ten years old now, Twitch has grown to become the most recognizable brand when it comes to online streaming. Some of the most popular game broadcasters such as xQc, Shroud, and Wilbursoot have made a name for themselves on the platform, with millions of users tuning in every day to check out all sorts of content. This popularity only seems to be growing as well, perhaps due to the last two years in which much of the world succumbed to the pandemic. Recently, some statistics were released showing just how big the site is continuing to be.
According to a report, Twitch viewership increased by 45% for this year, with users clocking in around 24 billion hours of videos. These figures come from StreamElements' analytics partner Rainmaker.gg. On top of this, there have also been some details released about the most watched video games on the site, with some amassing at least one billion views throughout this year alone.
Of the most popular content, Grand Theft Auto 5 was the most watched game on Twitch, with around 2.1 billion views overall, an increase of 175% year-over-year when compared to 2020. The second most watched game was League of Legends, with 1.8 billion views, which accounts for a 28.5% increase. Lastly, Fortnite was the next most popular title to watch on stream, having a 10.6% viewership increase compared to last year, or around one billion hours of watch time.
These figures are absolutely astounding, though perhaps not surprising given that Twitch is pretty much the final word in terms of online streaming. There are, of course, its rivals, which the report does acknowledge. Facebook Gaming which houses the likes of Ramee saw a 47% increase in viewership, amounting to 5.3 billion hours in total throughout 2021. This may pale compared to what Twitch was able to achieve, but it's still no small feat, and the fact that both platforms are seeing more viewers shows that streaming is still as popular as ever.
The Amazon-owned site has had its share of controversies in the past, such as the infamous Twitch "hate raid" scandal, which left a lot of users concerned that the company may not be able to offer long term solutions for hate speech. However, the statistics above don't seem to have harmed its reputation too much, and it looks as though Twitch will continue to see more and more people joining its site for the foreseeable future, at least.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz