Live streaming platforms continue to grow and stand out in different categories. In this field, there are many competitors, such as YouTube Gaming, Twitch, and Facebook Gaming. With its monthly State of the Stream report, StreamElements examines the direction of the industry.
Related: Video games sales in Europe are down by 38% in July 2022
With the removal of quarantines after the pandemic, the high viewing rates seen by live broadcast platforms experienced a specific decrease. According to StreamElements data, the highest rates were seen in June this year. Twitch and YouTube Gaming saw consecutive growth rates in June and the next two months. However, the post-pandemic decline has been replaced by healthy growth.
As seen above, Facebook gaming has shown a substantial quarterly decrease in hourly views. Meanwhile, Twitch reached 1.865 billion hours in August and 13 million hours watched on YouTube compared to July.
According to StreamElements, the drivers of YouTube’s growth have been talents like Sykkuno, who joined YouTube Gaming from Twitch in May, and LilyPichu and Myth, who joined in July. These famous streamers continued their streaming lives by changing their platforms within the framework of certain agreements.
Meanwhile, another piece of news came from the Twitch side. Famous publisher Ninja gave up his Twitch Partnership status for the sake of broadcasting on all platforms, including YouTube. Now, Ninja will be able to broadcast freely on the platform of his choice.
Fall Guys, which became one of the most watched games in July with a significant rise, could not be in the top 10 this time. Minecraft was the most watched game on YouTube with 21 million hours, followed by Apex Legends with 14 million hours and Garena Free Fire with 12 million hours.
Among the 10 most watched categories on Twitch, Just Chatting (259 million hours) is at the top, as it was in July. It is followed by League of Legends with 129 million hours and Grand Theft Auto V with 127 million hours.
Japanese are the most watched streamers on YouTube
Five of the 10 most-watched streamers in the August charts were Latin American, while YouTube Gaming had the same proportion of Japanese streamers. Three of these Japanese streamers have been VTubers, which has seen a considerable rise recently. On the subject, StreamElements CEO Gil Hirsch made the following comments:
“Because VTubing’s avatar-driven format democratizes streaming by putting the appeal primarily on the creator’s ability to entertain, brands should expect this category to be a huge driver of viewership as they build out their campaigns.”
Related: Video Game Trends: Live Streaming Report – Q1 2022
In the last part of the report, we see that streamers who just entered Twitch’s top 10 list are making a big bang: ElSpreen and Kai Cenat. According to StreamElements data, Kai doubled the time he spent streaming and increased his watching hours from 3.5 million to 9 million.
next: Blankos Block Party becomes the first Web3 game on Epic Games Store
