Report

Video Game Streaming Trends: 2022 Second Quarter Report

1 January 202215 pages2,829 words

Summary

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.

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