Report shows that watch time of live gaming streams significantly dropped just recently across gaming platforms

The streaming of video games has become a popular activity since 2010 on the American app, Twitch. Later, it continues to make its way to YouTube, Meta (formerly Facebook), and other services. Streamlabs, a software company, and Stream Hatchet's yearly streaming report indicates that from April to June, gamers on Twitch streaming , YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming broadcasts came live for 273 million hours, and the report represents 19.4% low from the second quarter of the last year and 12% from the past quarter.

According to Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet’s report, the audience became part of live broadcasts for only 7.36 billion hours across the gaming sites past quarter. This shows a decline of 18.1% YOY (in the mid of 2021, viewership stands at around 9 billion hours) and 8.4% from the Q2 of 2022. The fundamental reason for a downturn of viewers towards these gaming platforms could be due to a shift of trend from online gaming to physical gaming as now people are not restricted to sitting at home as they were during the pandemic.

Considering the widely used gaming service, Twitch which is undoubtedly the best among YouTube gaming and Facebook gaming, has got more than half (76%) of the market share concerning hours watched which was 5.64 billion, and 92.7% of hours streamed (a total of 204.2 million hours). The statistics fell by 13.4% and 16% from the previous year's Q2. Furthermore, the report highlights that the new channels streaming on Twitch also declined by 2 million to 9.6 million. Despite this, a popular Twitch app category, Twitch's Just Chatting, grows daily, and the number of hours watched has risen to 2.2& from the last quarter. This Just chatting category has got the top viewership. The frequently-watched categories included (GTA) Vice City, with a time spent of 465 million hours, and League of Legends, with 464 million hours viewership.

Apart from Twitch, YouTube Gaming observed consistent growth from last quarter, although it declined by 13.1% from the previous year's second quarter to 1.13 billion hours. In addition, the total hours streamed also reduced by 9.6% YoY to 8.05 million.

Another live gaming streams platform, Facebook Gaming, saw a much bigger decline ratio, notwithstanding Mark Zuckerberg's efforts not to take a commission from creators, making money from Facebook and Instagram. Still, the watch time decreased by 51% from last year to 580 million. Moreover, the number of hours streamed also dropped to 7.9 million last quarter compared to 20.8 million in the second quarter of 2021.

We hope that sooner or later, the numbers will grow again, folks will again prefer indoor gaming streams, and these platforms will catch up with more viewership as it was during the pandemic.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World