Game streaming in the Twitch world (study)

Gaming content consumption

Streaming has become a huge part of media consumption in recent years. Gamers and nongamers alike flock to platforms like YouTube and Twitch (the world's most popular live streaming service) to watch their favorites play games and interact with their fanbase. But which games and gamers are the most popular?

We recently compiled and analyzed Twitch streaming data to uncover the most watched streamers and games of the past year. We also found the most watched esports events in the last year and compared them to mainstream sporting events to see how audiences stacked up. Read on to find out who has captured the most attention.

Key takeaways

• xQc is the most watched Twitch streamer over the past year, with his watch time equating to 27,849 years. Gaules (18,877 years) and ibai (13,063 years) round out the top three.
• League of Legends is the most watched game streamed on Twitch over the past year, with watch time equating to 183,144 years. Grand Theft Auto V (168,303 years) and Valorant (135,163 years) round out the top three.
• The most viewed esports event on all platforms, Free Fire Series 2021 Singapore, had over 50% of the total viewership of the final round of the 2022 Masters Tournament.

Most popular streamers

Over 8 million streamers used Twitch in 2021, so we wanted to find the most popular streamers on the platform. Let's see which channels were watched the most and how many followers tuned in.

#1 Twitch streamer - xQc

Canadian streamer xQc was the most watched one on Twitch in the last year, with his watch time equating to 27,849 years; that's 353 lifetimes! On average, he had 71,279 viewers in his stream at once — a crowd which could fill Madison Square Garden three and a half times. xQc spends about 25% of his streams playing Overwatch, 19% just chatting with his followers and 10% playing Grand Theft Auto V.

#2-3 Twitch streamers - Gaules and ibai

Gaules and ibai were the second and third-most watched channels, averaging 18,877 and 13,063 years of watch time, respectively. Gaules, a Brazilian streamer, is hyper-focused on one game, spending over 70% of his stream time playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Meanwhile, Spanish gamer ibai streams several different games and spends about 33% of his time just chatting with viewers. However, his most popular streams are when he streams sports, Among Us and Minecraft.

Not all top streamers are gaming-focused

While most streamers on our most watched list stream video games, a few of them don't. For example, HasanAbi, who garnered over 8,000 years in watch time, usually streams political content in the "Just Chatting" format.

Most watched games on Twitch

Streamers have a huge influence over their fanbase, who gather in live streams and chat sections to watch and interact with them. We used Twitch data to find the most watched games of the last year.

Top 3 watched games on Twitch

We found that League of Legends, Grand Theft Auto V and Valorant were the most watched games on Twitch streams. Of the top three, Valorant is the one streamed by the most streamers (over 1.7 million). However, League of Legends averaged the most watch time, equating to over 180,000 years. Grand Theft Auto V was close behind with over 160,000 years in watch time. The Rockstar game was released in 2013, and its follow up — Grand Theft Auto VI — has been long-awaited, although a release date is not yet known.

Top streamed game on Twitch

Although League of Legends, GTA and Valorant were the most watched games, they weren't the most streamed by players. Fortnite was the most streamed game on our list, with over 3.7 million users streaming the free-to-play game. Ranking at number six on our list, it totaled over 76,000 years of watch time. Fortnite also took the top spot for the most streamed game on Twitch for all of 2021, with 110,333 years of watch time. Could this drop from the top hint at a decline in popularity for this battle royale-style game as it entered into 2022?

Most viewed Twitch streams

Although streamers often have dedicated fan bases showing up for specific streams they enjoy, there are some streams and special events that bring much larger audiences to Twitch. Here are the most viewed Twitch streams of 2022.

Top stream on Twitch in 2022 was "La Velada Del Año II Boxing Match" by ibai

The most viewed Twitch stream in 2022 was ibai's June 25th stream, which peaked at over 3.3 million viewers and broke Twitch's viewership record. Ibai's stream fell under "Special Events" — a category for in-real-life events, gaming conferences like E3, and anything else that wouldn't fall under Twitch's other categories. In this case, ibai's stream was a boxing event, "La Velada Del Año II," where Spanish-speaking influencers dueled it out in the boxing ring. The peak of the event happened during a match between Argentinian streamer Momo and Spanish YouTuber Viruzz.

Most watched streams were globally diverse

Of the top five most watched streams, four of them were streamed in languages other than English. Elxokas and TheGrefg, who held the number two and three spots, are both Spanish-speaking streamers, while Squeezie is a French-speaking streamer. The fifth-most watched stream was from OneXTwo_, a horse-betting channel that has since been removed by Twitch.

Squeezie's "Special Events" stream, like ibai's, was held IRL. His October 8th stream was for GP Explorer, a Formula 4 race he organized and participated in with 22 French internet personalities.

How esports viewership compares to traditional sports

We know that streaming content consumers love to watch esports, but how do the viewership stats of esports events compare to traditional sports broadcasts? We looked at the number of unique viewers tuned into the biggest esports events across all platforms, not just Twitch, to see how the statistics stack up.

Most streamed esports events in the last year

The most viewed esports event on all platforms, Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore, was 53% as viewed as the final round of the 2022 Masters Tournament. The esports event, which serves as a world series for the Vietnamese battle royale game Free Fire, garnered 5.4 million viewers compared to the Masters final round's 10.2 million viewers.

Other popular esports events included Worlds 2021 (the League of Legends world championship), PUBG Mobile Global Championship Season 0 and the M3 World Championship for the game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Of the seven top esports events, none were held in the United States.

These esports events might not yet compete with American sporting events like the Superbowl, which had 99.2 million viewers in 2021, but they could be on their way as each event featured over 2.5 million viewers.

The state of Twitch streaming today

Streaming grows bigger every year, with 2022 smashing some records for the most watched Twitch streams. Streamers from around the world have amassed huge reputations online and regularly find tens of thousands of viewers in their chats. And while the top games in Twitch this year were League of Legends, Valorant and Grand Theft Auto V, many viewers also visited channels just to catch up with their favorite streamers.

Major events like Squeezie's GP Explorer stream and ibai's boxing stream show the potential that streamers have to grab huge audiences, especially when comparing those numbers to major, organized esports events' audiences. As these numbers continue to rise, we can expect to see the market for streamers in the influencer world grow, especially when it comes to the video game sector.

Methodology

We analyzed TwitchStats and SullyGnome in order to gather streamer and game viewership on Twitch in 2022. Esports event viewership was gathered from Esports Charts. Traditional sports viewership was gathered from Sports Media Watch.

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Fair use statement

If you liked our findings about Twitch streamers, feel free to share this article for noncommercial purposes. Please remember to link back to our page as a credit to Frontier.