Is there Room for Non-Gaming content on Live Streaming Platforms?
Twitch is not only about Gaming anymore. Recent trends have shown the growth of Non-Gaming content during 2023, most of it can be attributed to the amount of special events that have happened during the year, and to the Just Chatting category. Also Sports have risen from the bottom of the ranks to consolidate itself as one of the top non-gaming categories during 2023 thanks to the disruptiveness of the Kings and Queens league.
In 2023, the number of unique channels that had Just Chatting as primary game on Twitch was 637K, which accounts for 32% of the over 1.9M channels that streamed Just Chatting at least once. Taking into consideration that so far in 2023 Twitch has nearly 3M unique channels, Just Chatting channels account for 27% of the total channels on Twitch.
History of Non-Gaming Content
Prior to the pandemic, the non-gaming genre on Twitch has been rapidly increasing over time. Last month, the genre hit almost 375 million hours watched, the genre’s greatest monthly value since January 2019, and for the first time this year, it overtook first-person shooter as the most popular genre. This figure represents the second-highest level of monthly viewing hours anticipated for 2023.
So how does a category draw this much attention without having an esports component? Well focusing on July alone, the outrageous “LA VELADA DEL AÑO III” event, which was hosted by the Spanish streamer Ibai, returned for a third time on July 1st. With many Twitch users tuning in to watch their favorite streamers compete, the event, which falls under the category of “Special Events,” achieved the highest number of hours watched with over 23 million, which represents a total of 6.2% of the genre’s total July viewership.
As well as competitive special events, there are many other categories that make up the long-term and growing success of the non-gaming genre. With a similar competitive aspect, Sports has managed to be the second most watched non-gaming category this year with a total of 199 million hours watched. The viewership received from creator-involved competitive events from the King’s League undoubtedly impacted this. The official channel of the league is the top non-gaming channel of 2023 with over 70 million hours watched.
Despite not having the top channel overall, Just Chatting dominates the non-gaming market due to the amount of popular streaming influencers that stream under the category. Unsurprisingly, Just Chatting is the top category with almost 2.3 billion hours watched in 2023 so far and thus almost three quarters of the genre’s market share this year. KaiCenat is the top Just Chatting channel this year with 65 million hours watched, with 46 million of this from his month-long stream back in February. Looking at the top overall non-gaming channels, 7 out of 10 have Just Chatting as their primary category and half have received over 95% of their viewership under the category.
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