Related Documents
Report
Video Game Streaming Trends: 2022 Second Quarter Report
The second quarter of 2022 marked a period of stabilization for the live streaming industry as the rapid growth spurred by pandemic lockdowns began to cool. Total hours watched across major platforms fell 15% year-over-year to 8.1 billion hours. This decline is attributed in part to creator fatigue, evidenced by a 20% drop in unique channels and a 16% decrease in total hours broadcast. Despite this contraction, the industry remains significantly larger than its pre-pandemic state in 2019. Twitch continues to dominate the market with a 68% share of total hours watched, followed by YouTube at 14%. Facebook Gaming saw a significant 50% decline in watch time compared to the previous year. Conversely, disruptor platforms like Trovo experienced a 127% increase in viewership, largely driven by Russian streamers migrating from Twitch. While the broader market slowed, the esports segment grew by 8%, with major events like the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational and the PGL Major Antwerp driving significant engagement. The data highlights a strategic shift among esports organizations, which are increasingly relying on content creators to reach broader audiences. For example, 98% of the hours watched for Luminosity were generated by its affiliated creators rather than competitive matches. Top-tier games like Grand Theft Auto V and League of Legends maintained their dominance, while new releases like The Quarry demonstrated the potential for narrative-driven titles to capture short-term viewership peaks. Non-gaming content also made an impact, as the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial boosted the Just Chatting category by over 7% during the quarter. This analysis covers global streaming trends across nearly 20 platforms, including Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming, for the period of April through June 2022. The findings are based on proprietary data aggregation and business intelligence from Stream Hatchet.
Stream HatchetJan 2022
Report
Video Game Streaming Trends Report: 2022 First Quarter
The primary aim of the analysis is to map the state of global video‑game streaming in the first quarter of 2022, linking audience behavior to platform performance, game releases, and advertising potential. While overall viewership growth has begun to temper—total hours watched fell 6 % from the previous quarter—it remains 66 % higher than the same period in 2020 and 140 % above Q1 2019, underscoring the sector’s continued expansion despite pandemic stabilization. Twitch retains overwhelming dominance, delivering roughly three‑quarters of all streamed hours and accounting for 80 % of esports viewership, which itself showed only a 0.3 % dip year‑over‑year but rose 63 % since 2019. Emerging competitors such as AfreecaTV, Trovo and NaverTV posted double‑digit growth, yet YouTube and Facebook together contributed less than 10 % of total hours. Core viewers—just 7.8 % of the audience—generated two‑thirds of watch time, averaging 276 minutes per day and proving 24 times more receptive to repeated advertising than casual viewers, who average 12 minutes daily. Game‑level insights reveal that legacy titles like Grand Theft Auto V and League of Legends remain top‑draws, while new releases such as Elden Ring and Lost Ark captured strong core‑viewer engagement, each accounting for over half of their streaming hours. Mobile game streaming is heavily core‑oriented, with 78 % of hours coming from core fans despite casual dominance in downloads. Content creators mirror these patterns: xQcOW led live streams with 62.8 million hours, while VOD‑first creators like Rubius generated twice as many video‑on‑demand views per concurrent viewer, highlighting divergent monetization pathways.
Stream HatchetMar 2022
Report
Video Game Streaming Trends: 2022 Third Quarter Report
The third quarter of 2022 reflects a period of stabilization for the live streaming industry as it transitions away from pandemic-era highs. While total hours watched and unique channels both decreased by 13% compared to the previous year, the market remains significantly larger than in 2019, with viewership levels nearly double those of the pre-pandemic era. Data indicates that while fewer creators are active, those remaining are broadcasting for longer durations, resulting in a 7.5% increase in total hours broadcast year-over-year. Twitch maintains a dominant market share, accounting for 72% of total gaming hours watched, followed by YouTube at 15% and Facebook Gaming at 12%. Notably, YouTube was the only major platform to see growth in hours watched, rising 4% as high-profile creators migrated to the service. Conversely, Facebook Gaming experienced a sharp 70% decline in viewership, likely influenced by the discontinuation of its standalone app. In contrast to the broader market slowdown, the esports segment grew by 40% year-over-year, with Twitch capturing 66% of this specific market. Content trends highlight the rising influence of VTubers and the strategic shift of esports organizations toward variety content. VTubers now represent 50% of the top ten female creators, with the top ten VTubers seeing an average viewership growth of 30% over the previous quarter. Additionally, eight of the top ten esports organizations now generate more than half of their total watch time through content creators rather than competitive matches. While established titles like Grand Theft Auto V and League of Legends continue to lead the charts, the quarter also saw a peak in gambling viewership on Twitch just prior to the implementation of new platform restrictions on unlicensed sites.
Stream HatchetSept 2022
Report
2023 Yearly Live Streaming Trends Report
The global live streaming market entered a period of stabilization in 2023, reaching 38.3 billion hours watched with the lowest volatility recorded since 2020. While the industry leader, Twitch, experienced a 4.9% decline in total hours watched, the broader landscape remained dynamic due to the 11% growth of YouTube Gaming and the rapid ascent of Kick. Within its first year, Kick secured the position of the third-largest Western streaming platform, displacing Facebook and hosting nearly one million unique channels. This shift reflects a diversifying market where platform loyalty is increasingly challenged by new entrants and multi-platform simulcasting, the latter of which has been shown to increase creator audiences by an average of 100%. Esports remains a primary engine for engagement, with viewership rising 9% year-over-year to 2.5 billion hours. This growth is heavily supported by the rise of co-streaming, which now accounts for nearly 30% of total esports consumption. While First-Person Shooters remain the dominant gaming genre at 4.7 billion hours, non-gaming categories such as "Just Chatting" and "Sports" are expanding their market share. Notable content trends include the continued rise of VTubers on YouTube and significant regional growth in Japan, where Twitch viewership increased by 283 million hours. Demographic and geographic shifts further define the current landscape. Kick has established a predominantly English-speaking base and shows a slightly higher representation of top female creators compared to its competitors. Meanwhile, Europe saw a massive 400% surge in Battle Royale esports viewership driven by major international championships. As the industry matures, the integration of sophisticated analytics and marketing ecosystems allows stakeholders to navigate a complex environment where traditional gaming content, creator-led events, and diverse language markets intersect to maintain high levels of global engagement.
Stream HatchetMar 2024