The Game Awards celebrate the most influential, innovative, and imaginative games each year. On the 13th of December 2024, awards will be handed out across 29 categories (summarized here). But does critical acclaim translate into live-streaming viewership? And do certain types of games tend to grab more people’s interest based on budget and genre? In this article, we’re looking at nominees from a select handful of The Game Awards categories to see how they performed on live streaming in 2024.
Game of the Year on Live Streaming
Before diving into more specific categories, it’s worth quickly reviewing the big award: Game of the Year. With so much diversity among these nominees, it’s hard to nail down any specific trends. But it’s clear that Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC brought in by far the highest viewership this year with 187.8M hours watched. While there’s been much debate over the inclusion of DLC in the Game of the Year category, one can see how the incredible performance of the game almost necessitates its acknowledgment. Amongst the other nominees are Souls-like Black Myth: Wukong (61.5M hours watched) and RPGs which have always performed well on live-streaming platforms, like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (23.4M) and Metaphor: ReFantazio (9.2M).
Best Ongoing Game on Live Streaming
Ongoing games are a combination of both MMOs and live service games, both of which gradually accumulate intensely loyal fanbases. With incredible live-streaming compatibility through events like Twitch Drops campaigns, it’s no surprise that these games tend to bring in higher viewership. Live-streaming titan Fortnite is far out in front here with 738.7M hours watched in 2024, being one of the foundational titles that created the modern gaming/streaming meta. Three of the other titles got boosts in viewership from either DLC or expansions released in 2024, those being Destiny 2: The Final Shape, Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, and Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred. That makes Helldivers 2 the only new game to feature, with a much lower viewership as a result.
Best Esports Game on Live Streaming
Keeping on the trend of games that are well-suited for live-streaming audiences, esports titles are inextricably entwined with live streaming ever since the origin of esports with StarCraft. Of all the awards up for grabs, the esports category has by far the highest combined total of viewership amongst its nominees at just under 5B. Unsurprisingly, League of Legends leads the way with 1.8B hours watched alone. The Esports World Cup helped to cross-pollinate many esports-viewing audiences with 22 different tournaments all held in the middle of the year, most likely helping to boost this number even higher than usual.
Best Mobile Game on Live Streaming
There are many mobile games that draw a mass audience on live streaming, but many of these are mobile ports of pre-existing games like Call of Duty or PUBG – therefore, they don’t appear here in The Game Awards Best Mobile Game category. Among these original mobile game nominees, Gacha games like Wuthering Waves and Zenless Zone Zero performed best with 31.8M and 27.2M hours watched, respectively. Card-based games including Balatro and Pokémon TCG Pocket also fare well, due to viewer interest in learning optimal strategies from their favourite streamers.
Best Multiplayer Game on Live Streaming
The multiplayer games up for nomination at The Game Awards are a mixed bag among live-streaming audiences, despite how obviously well-suited they are to collaboration among streamers. The best performing multiplayer nominees come from hardcore, hyper-competitive genres like Shooters and Fighting games, with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Tekken 8 pulling in 128.2M and 64.9M hours watched, respectively. Meanwhile, more casual games like Super Mario Party Jamboree (14.6M) and games that put a heavier emphasis on their campaign mode like Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 (23.3M) tend to pull in lower (though still respectable) viewerships.
Best Independent Game on Live Streaming
Indie games get the least love on live streaming for a few reasons. Other than their smaller marketing budgets and lack of in-built fanbase, indie games typically stay away from genres that require immense budgets to be successful in like Shooters or MOBAs. Although Balatro managed to do a decent job as a Roguelike with 14.1M hours watched, the other nominated indie games all fell below the 5M hours watched mark. These include the faux-retro minigame collection UFO 50 (2.8M) and Metroidvania Animal Well (1.7M).
Content Creator of the Year on Live Streaming
The Game Awards has taken an extra step towards acknowledging the importance of live streaming in the gaming community with their Content Creator of the Year award. Among this global collection of streamers, CaseOh came out on top with 67.9M hours watched, having gone from stride to stride since his earlier collaborations with Jynxzi. VTubers also got a spotlight this year, with Usada Pekora being nominated and bringing in 34.9M hours watched. The nominations represent a clear spread across different content types, from casual gaming to competitive and events-based gaming.
Most Anticipated Game on Live Streaming
For a speculative insight into which games might perform well on live streaming next year, it’s worth taking a glance at the Most Anticipated Game category. The obvious leader here is Grand Theft Auto VI, with the previous iteration GTA V having consistently been one of the top 3 games on live-streaming platforms since its release. But a couple of the other nominees show a lot of promise: Single-player experiences Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 both follow up on previously beloved live-streaming games, while Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds is certain to command a monumental following online based on the success of Monster Hunter: World and the Monster Hunter Wilds demo that took place in November.
As live streaming marketing becomes an increasingly essential method for promoting game releases and sparking online discourse, more critically acclaimed games will likely include features to make them streamer-friendly. Stream Hatchet is excited to track these most anticipated games and a bevy of other innovative releases in 2025.
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