Streaming reports and market data
Documents
A Moderation Guide for Successful Brand Livestreams and Digital Events
Maintaining a safe and professional environment during brand-led digital events and livestreams is essential for protecting corporate reputation, fostering audience engagement, and securing sponsor relationships.
- Effective event moderation requires a structured, iterative framework that replaces subjective judgment with clear community boundaries and actionable protocols.
- Brands must utilize a detailed run book for every broadcast that explicitly defines staff roles, communication channels, and escalation procedures.
- A formal action matrix should be implemented to standardize responses to specific types of violations, ensuring consistent enforcement of community standards.
Why Gaming Is Exploding in India!
The Indian gaming market has evolved from a misunderstood, niche sector into a massive, high-growth industry that now rivals established markets in East Asia.
- The Indian gaming market has transitioned from a niche sector to a high-growth industry with hundreds of millions of active players, rivaling established East Asian markets.
- Projections indicate the sector will reach a major milestone within the next decade, with at least one individual game title expected to generate one billion dollars in revenue.
- Gaming applications are consistently among the most downloaded categories on mobile platforms, and gaming content is a dominant force in digital streaming viewership.
Growing a YouTube Channel (Gotta Catch ‘em All)
Building a successful YouTube channel within the competitive Pokémon Video Game Championship (VGC) scene requires a strategic blend of high-level educational content and consistent community engagement.
- Successful Pokémon VGC channels leverage long-form content (45–60 minutes) by positioning high-level educational expertise as the primary value proposition for an affluent audience.
- YouTube Shorts function as a top-of-funnel acquisition strategy to drive new viewers toward substantive, ad-supported long-form videos.
- Content creators should align their production schedules with the natural release cadence of new Pokémon game generations to capitalize on predictable viewership spikes.
Playing Will You Snail Mods (Anniversary Stream)
The indie platformer Will You Snail maintains a vibrant post-launch lifecycle through a robust community-driven modding scene.
- The developer is prioritizing the integration of Steam Workshop support for the level editor to streamline content distribution and improve accessibility for community-created mods.
- Community modders are utilizing the Undertale Modding Tool to manipulate the GameMaker architecture of Will You Snail, enabling significant gameplay overhauls like physics-based ball mechanics and time-dilation systems.
- The game has transitioned into a maintenance phase as the developer shifts focus toward new projects such as Thronefall, while still evaluating strategies to support the existing modding ecosystem.
Esports Live-Streaming Trends Report: Q1 2023
The esports live-streaming market demonstrated significant resilience in the first quarter of 2023, with viewership growing 15% year-over-year to reach 651 million hours watched.
- Esports live-streaming viewership grew 15% year-over-year in Q1 2023 to 651 million hours, bucking the broader industry trend of declining live-streaming viewership.
- Audience interest is highly concentrated, with the top 30 tournaments accounting for 68% of total esports hours watched.
- Twitch holds 62% of the total esports market share, while YouTube maintains 30% and has successfully captured 34% of viewership for large-scale events with an average minute audience over 80,000.
Video Game Streaming Trends Report: Q1 2023
The live-streaming market experienced a cooling period in the first quarter of 2023, with combined viewership across major platforms decreasing by 16% compared to the previous year.
- Total live-streaming viewership declined 16% year-over-year in Q1 2023, though total hours watched remain 46% higher than Q1 2020 levels.
- Twitch and YouTube Live Gaming consolidated their market dominance to a combined 89% share, while Facebook Live viewership plummeted by 69%.
- Cross-media synergy is a primary growth driver, evidenced by the HBO 'The Last of Us' series triggering a 107% increase in viewership for the franchise's games.
Panel: The Esports Expansion: How Technology, Brands & Audiences Are Changing the Face of Gaming.
Esports has evolved from a niche competitive gaming sector into a comprehensive entertainment industry that competes directly with major streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube.
- Esports is shifting from a game-genre focus to a multi-platform entertainment model that prioritizes influencer-led storytelling to compete with major streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube.
- To capture Gen Z and Gen Alpha demographics, the industry is moving away from traditional sports benchmarks in favor of authentic, community-driven engagement strategies.
- A significant geographic divide exists in hardware adoption, with mobile esports dominating markets in China, India, and Brazil, while Western audiences remain anchored to PC and console platforms.
The MENA Games Market: From Sand to Stardom
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) gaming market is experiencing a period of rapid expansion, characterized by significant government investment, a growing base of digital natives, and an increasing emphasis on cultural localization.
- The MENA-3 region (Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Egypt) generated $1.8 billion in revenue from 67.4 million gamers as of 2022, driven by a mobile-first ecosystem.
- Cultural localization is a critical success factor, with 86.6% of regional gamers prioritizing language support and successful titles integrating Arabic themes and local celebrities.
- Esports is a primary engagement driver, with 73% of regional gamers participating in competitive gaming supported by massive prize pools and dedicated infrastructure.
Video Game Streaming Trends 2022 Yearly Report
Western live streaming viewership experienced a 13.5% year-over-year decline in 2022, totaling 29.5 billion hours watched.
- Western live streaming viewership fell 13.5% year-over-year in 2022 to 29.5 billion hours, driven largely by a 14% reduction in unique active channels.
- Twitch maintained market dominance while YouTube Gaming solidified its position as the second-largest platform, despite Facebook Gaming suffering a 56% viewership decline.
- Creator-driven events and original programming frequently outperformed traditional AAA game launches, with individual personalities proving more effective at driving engagement than professional esports matches.
Video Game Live Streaming Trends Report: Q3 2023
The Q3 2023 Video Game Live Streaming Trends Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the global live-streaming market, covering major platforms including Twitch, YouTube Gaming, Facebook Live, Kick, and AfreecaTV.
- The live-streaming market has stabilized with 7.6 billion hours watched in Q3 2023, a 4% year-over-year decline but still 90% higher than 2019 levels.
- Kick has emerged as the third most-watched platform, surpassing Facebook Live and AfreecaTV, with 66% of its viewership driven by non-gaming content.
- Twitch maintains a dominant 71% market share, though its esports viewership experienced an 18% year-over-year decrease.
Video Game Streaming Trends Report: Q2 2023
This analysis of the video game live-streaming market for Q2 2023 highlights a period of stabilization and strategic shifts following the post-pandemic boom.
- Despite a 9% quarterly viewership decline in Q2 2023, the live-streaming market remains 97% larger than pre-pandemic levels from Q2 2019.
- New platform Kick captured a 2% market share in Q2 2023, driven by a 204% increase in unique channels and a creator-friendly 95-5 revenue split.
- Kick’s content strategy diverges from Twitch, with over two-thirds of its viewership originating from non-gaming categories like 'Just Chatting' and 'Slots & Casino' rather than gaming.
Peak Play: Trends in East Asian Videogame Streaming H1 2023
The East Asian videogame livestreaming market is a mature and culturally distinct ecosystem where competitive esports serve as the primary engine for audience engagement.
- Competitive esports, specifically MOBA and Battle Royale titles, drive over 50% of total viewership in the East Asian streaming market.
- Honor of Kings remains the dominant force in China with 5.67 billion views, while VALORANT and Apex Legends lead in Japan and Korea with over 100 million hours watched each.
- Key Opinion Leaders and VTubers are significant market drivers, contributing up to 15% of total viewership for major titles and successfully revitalizing older games.