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Fortnite creators are taking over YouTube and the biggest ones are Twitch streamers

Fortnite creators are taking over YouTube and the biggest ones are Twitch streamers

It comes as no surprise that Fortnite is making waves on YouTube as well as Twitch. The game’s popularity across every video platform shows no signs of halting yet.

However, Fortnite has started to impact YouTube in another way. Our partners at Matchmade keep track of channels in every subscription tier, and the data shows which YouTubers are growing rapidly.

While it comes as no surprise, a majority of the fastest growing channels on YouTube right now are Twitch streamers. Creators from Twitch are simply re-purposing their broadcasts and uploading them to YouTube, creating a spike in subscribers on a second platform.

This presumably creates a second revenue stream for them too. That’s pretty smart.

The fastest rising channels in YouTube's gold tier

Twitchy business

Of course, Ninja is still topping the growth in YouTube’s gold tier. The streamer has amassed over ten million subscribers since January. His content is primarily Twitch VODs that have been edited in to short videos and uploaded for fans that are unable to catch him live.

Shroud is also a Twitch streamer. A large one at that, with an impressive three million followers on the platform. While he primarily streams PUBG, an occasional Fortnite stream does occur.

While PUBG is no longer causing the same traction as Fortnite, it’s still very much a part of the battle royale wave and it’ll still contribute to growth.

Dakotaz has also crept in to the list. Recently named the ‘favourite Fortnite streamer’ in a Red Bull poll, Dakotaz is also managing to cultivate a sizeable following on Twitch and is porting that over to a YouTube channel. While he’s only grown around 400k subscribers on YouTube since February – that’s enough to put him on the growth list.

Doing it in reverse

If it’s a good idea for Twitch streamers to put their Fortnite VODs on YouTube, it makes sense that it’s a good idea for YouTubers to branch out over to Twitch. YouTube creators with over 100k subscribers are immediately eligible for a Twitch partnership, making it easy for them to hop platforms.

Muselk and Lachlan are among creators riding between both platforms. Muselk is an established YouTuber with over five million subscribers, but a recent focus on Fortnite has seen him burst on to the Twitch circuit too, amassing almost 250k followers there.

The same goes for Lachlan, who also has a respectable four million YouTube subs, and 150k followers on Twitch. Six months ago, Lachlan’s YouTube videos ago were bringing in around 10 million views a month. In April, the addition of Fortnite content saw his channel rack up ten times that amount, with over 100 million monthly views.

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Its worth mentioning that growth in the bronze and silver YouTube tiers looks very much the same. A glance at the data alone shows that channels with ‘Fortnite’ in the name are fast outgrowing any other content on YouTube.

Sub growth in YouTube's silver tier

Sub growth in YouTube's bronze tier

The conclusion to be drawn is that Fortnite is the key to a successful career on both YouTube and Twitch in the current climate. However, be aware that the sheer amount of Twitch streamers and YouTubers hopping on to the Fortnite band wagon will result in some serious saturation to the market.

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