What’s Trending

The Other Platforms

Posted on by Natasha Vijji

Twitch is by far the most popular service for streaming and watching video game footage and related content. This is partially due to the fact that Twitch was the first company dedicated to video game streaming, but its success can also be credited to its own innovations in the industry, particularly when it comes to helping users monetize their own content. Though aside from Twitch itself, there’s a couple of other places to go to see what’s popular on the service.

There are several smaller streaming services such as Smashcast (formally Azabu and Hitbox). But YouTube and Mixer are the only real threat to Twitch due to the size of their respective companies and existing user base. After the arrival of YouTube Gaming, twitch had initially seen a stump in its viewership. An independent report released found that YouTube Gaming had grown its streamer base by 343 percent in 2017, while Twitch only grew by 197 percent. However, that could also be an indication that the creator community itself hasn’t grown that much over the past year, even though the number of people who make money from Twitch has.

One thing should be clear by now: Live-streaming is here to stay, and competition is only going to keep heating up.

Top Games

Posted on by Natasha Vijji

Fortnite is dominating the gaming industry in almost every way right now. According to metrics from SullyGnome, which tracks Twitch viewership, Fortnite is now consistently the most viewed and streamed game on Twitch, besting even the likes of eternal staples League of Legends, CS:GO, Overwatch and its own rival, PUBG.

Fortnite is besting…pretty much all games at all times during prime streaming time, other than occasions where something like Overwatch league play or a DOTA 2 tournament, which may cause it to be eclipsed momentarily. It has created streaming superstars out of players like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who regularly draws tens of thousands of viewers to his channel.

However, the past year saw a slew of great games and many of them flourished on the platform. Twitch’s top 10 titles based on minutes watched were:

  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
  • Monster Hunter World
  • Sea of Thieves
  • FIFA 19
  • Red Dead Redemption 2
  • God of War
  • Realm Royale
  • Dragon Ball Fighterz
  • Far Cry 5
  • Detroit: Become Human

The coming months will likely bring new competitors to the space, but with Fortnite this well established, it seems poised to take on all comers.

Top Streamers

Posted on by Natasha Vijji

The biggest Twitch creator on the planet Tyler Blevins, Ninja, started his career playing Halo 3 professionally in 2009, playing for various teams. He became a streamer in 2011, first with Justin.tv, and then Twitch.He joined Luminosity Gaming in 2017 and began streaming the game, Fortnite. Today he earns over $500,000 a month from streaming Fortnite. As of February 2019, he is the most followed streamer on Twitch with over thirteen million followers and an average of over 30,000 viewers per week

However, Blevins is not the only streamer killing it on Twitch. Battle royale streamers such as TimTheTatman, TFue and Shroud are still growing rapidly, alongside competitive players like League of Legends icon Faker and Sonic Fox.

There’s a tiny handful of very popular streamers – folks that will get 3000+ viewers for an individual stream.  By and large, though, most streamers will have an audience of 10-20. With numbers like that the experience is more interactive and the streamer can respond to viewers in a more direct way. The most popular streamers and channels change pretty regularly as individual games and streamers gain or lose followers.  

Twitch also saw a rise in its creator population this year. The total number of creators going live per month shot from 2 million to 3 million this year, with almost 500,000 streamers broadcasting every single day.Today there are more than 27,000 Partners out of roughly the same number of monthly streamers.

You can check out the top 10 streamers list here