- Twitch and Facebook Gaming see their average hours watched grow by 45% in 2021
- The numbers are provided by StreamElements, and Rainmaker.gg
- Female streamers remain underrepresented in the overall numbers based on the Twitch stats
Streaming platforms continue to generate robust interest throughout 2021, with both Facebook Gaming and Twitch posting new records.
Twitch and Facebook Gaming Not Slowing Down
Live streaming continues to be a driving vertical in the entertainment industry with the results from the full year in 2021 proving to be another huge boon to the industry. Both Twitch and Facebook Gaming have seen a 45% growth year-over-year, making it one of the biggest jumps in the audience in both platforms’ history.
To put things in perspective, Rainmaker, a StreamElements analytics partner, has been able to extract the numbers and detail the growth. Twitch saw its platform generate 24 billion hours in 2021 of watched content compared to 17 billion hours in 2020. Meanwhile, Facebook Gaming notched up a 47% increase in its total hours watched from 3.6 billion to 5.3 billion.
GTA V Completely Kills It on Twitch
Twitch saw Just Chatting generate the biggest chunk of interest over the year, with 3.1 billion hours whereas Grand Theft Auto V continued to kill it as the king of Twitch. GTA V had 2.1 billion hours watched throughout the year, making it the king of the platform even though the game was released some eight years ago.
The rest of the platform’s top slots were dominated by popular esports titles with all of the following eight titles, but one considered an electronic sport. League of Legends came in third with 1.8 billion.
Fortnite, a once-unimaginable blockbuster, clocked one billion watched hours and Valorant came in next with 949 million hours watched. Minecraft generated 880 million. In the meantime, Call of Duty Warzone pulled in some 858 million hours watched, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive came in next with 757 million.
Apex Legends saw 691 million hours watched and Dota 2 was three times less watched than League of Legends with 578 million hours.
Everyone’s Beloved Streamers
The year saw the resurgence of many streamers with Ninja noticeably missing from the top streaming slots. xQc led the way with 261 million hours watched and while Amouranth was not in the Top 10 streamers, she is only one of two female streamers to make it into the Top 100.
She presently takes #33 place in the overall streaming ranking for the year, followed by saddummy who is #85. Other popular streamers included loud-coringa with close to 200 million hours watched followed by Gaules.
While the streaming elite has remained vastly unchallenged, bar a few individuals switching to YouTube Gaming, Twitch saw a good overall performance-driven no doubt by the pandemic, but also lasting trends in the way digital content is served to consumers.
