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Twitch viewership continues to grow while YouTube Gaming suffers declines

Twitch viewership continues to grow while YouTube Gaming suffers declines

New numbers from streaming software provider Streamlabs suggest that Twitch’s dominance of the streaming games category is only widening.

In the first quarter of 2018 Twitch grew its average concurrent viewer numbers to 953k, which is up 21 per cent from 788k in the previous quarter. In comparison, the sector’s second largest service YouTube Gaming saw a 12 per cent decline to 272k.

Facebook enjoyed strong growth of 103 per cent, although its numbers still pale in comparison with a 56k average. Periscope climbed 18 per cent to 94k and Mixer by 90 per cent to 9.5k – although the latter excludes Mixer viewership via Xbox, meaning in actual fact that service is likely significantly larger.

There were also big gains in the number of concurrent streamers, where Twitch grew 33 per cent quarter-on-quarter to 36k. Again, YouTube Gaming was down, this time by 13 per cent to 6.1k. Mixer, meanwhile, saw number jump 282 per cent while Periscope grew by 126 per cent.

Twitch now boasts 1.13m active streamers per month and YouTube Gaming 432k. Facebook Live has 45.6k, Mixer 32.7k and Periscope 1.96k

 

Twitch’s success can likely be credited to one thing – the tremendous popularity of Epic’s battle royale title Fortnite and the big-name stars who have grown from it such as Ninja. Throughout the quarter there were approximately 8,323,290 hours of Fortnite streamed across all platforms, which is almost double the 4,573,524 hours of PUBG.

“We expect Fortnite to continue its dominance of gaming and live streaming in the next quarter,” the report said. “As the Battle Royale genre heats up it and more games enter the space, it is interesting to think about who will be the most popular game in this genre in 9–12 months and why.

“In 2018 alone, we’ve seen several polished titles enter the Battle Royale space. Among them Island of Nyne, Radical Heights, Darwin Project. Each game attempts to differentiate itself either via polish, a radical aesthetic, or a new way to engage the audience.

“There is one AAA gaming studio that is missing from the scene. Blizzard. Will Blizzard enter the scene with an adapted version of Overwatch or a brand new game with a new engine and new lore?”

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