Across the top 100 games being streamed in June, viewership grew by 11%: A rise of around 155M hours watched compared to May. Diablo IV dropped down after the hype of the new season wore off, as did shooter XDefiant which steadied after huge release hype. A surprise win came from multiplayer dungeon crawler Dark and Darker which experienced a massive surge of over 10M hours watched thanks to a server wipe and new content in its most recent update.
The release that rocked the live-streaming world was Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, which reinvigorated the player base with a bevy of new bosses, areas, and builds to discover. This was also helped by Kai Cenat’s new DLC marathon stream, which followed in the footsteps of his mega-successful vanilla Elden Ring stream. As a result, Elden Ring reached #3 on the top 100 games for June with a leap to 122M hours watched – a 283% increase from May. Similarly, Destiny 2 reaped the benefits of a DLC release with the last installment in its Light and Dark saga, The Final Shape. Destiny 2 viewership jumped by 149% up to 26M hours watched in June.
Among the new entries into the monthly top 100, survival games continued to grab the attention of Steam players. Project Zomboid, Soulmask, and 7 Days to Die all made it into the top 100 with roughly 5M hours watched each. And yet, new release Chained Together was able to beat out all of them with 15.8M hours watched, amazingly landing the game at #25 on its debut. The grueling challenge of its Foddy-like gameplay is like catnip to streamers and their viewers alike, providing the entertaining frustration of other Foddy-likes including The Game of Sisyphus.
MMO Viewership Surges in June with Pax Dei Garnering Attention
Among the top 100 games in June, a shocking number of titles are MMO whose viewerships grew from May. Typically, MMOs trade off viewers as they share a similar player base, which results in some titles succeeding at the cost of other games. Not so for June: Practically every MMO on the leaderboard saw an increase in viewership including Old School RuneScape (91%), Lost Ark (53%), Final Fantasy XIV (47%), and MapleStory (53%).
The only MMOs that saw decreases in viewership were World of Warcraft and Albion Online. World of Warcraft’s drop in viewership may be the calm before the storm as the new expansion, The War Within, is due to be released on the 26th of August this year. Albion Online’s drop in viewership may simply be a cooling-off period after the surge in demand following its European server debut back in April.
Meanwhile, a couple of new MMOs made a splash in June. The much-hyped Pax Dei entered early access on the 18th of June, its most unique feature being the near-mandatory collaboration required for crafting. Pax Dei peeped into the top 100 games for June with 2.1M hours watched, but was edged out by another new MMO, Tarisland, which was released on the 21st of June and quickly accumulated 4M hours watched. Tarisland offers a slower combat experience that veers closer to World of Warcraft than Black Desert’s action gameplay. The game’s high viewership may be due to releasing across both PC and mobile at equal quality.
Mobile Esports Make a Comeback in June Across All Genres
On the topic of mobile game popularity, June was a massive month for mobile esports. Battle royale Garena Free Fire celebrated its 7th anniversary at the very end of June, just pushing the game into the top 10 with 38.5M hours watched and drumming up hype ahead of the Esports World Cup in July. BATTLEGROUNDS MOBILE INDIA also got a boost at the very end of June with the Battlegrounds Mobile India Series 2024 last weekend, more than doubling the game’s viewership in May to 18.2M hours watched.
Mobile MOBAs experienced a similar bump, with industry-standard Mobile Legends: Bang Bang generating 42.9M hours watched in June – up 32.6% from May thanks to the Snapdragon Pro Series which began in June and will wrap up in July. Meanwhile, Chinese-developed MOBA Arena of Valor and Honor of Kings (international versions of the same game) both saw over 300% jumps in viewership thanks to the Arena of Valor Premier League currently being hosted in Thailand.
Of course, these are just a few of the highlights from June. Here are the top 20 games, and their rank changes from May:
| Game | Rank | Hours Watched June | Hours Watched May | % Change | Rank Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Theft Auto V | 1 | 168,277,170 | 175,373,561 | -4.0% | 0 |
| League of Legends | 2 | 142,010,070 | 159,766,281 | -11.1% | 0 |
| Elden Ring | 3 | 122,275,406 | 31,922,894 | 283.0% | ▲ 8 |
| VALORANT | 4 | 92,131,108 | 98,785,518 | -6.7% | ▼ 1 |
| Counter-Strike | 5 | 70,619,411 | 67,713,083 | 4.3% | 0 |
| Minecraft | 6 | 63,410,553 | 76,810,945 | -17.4% | ▼ 2 |
| Fortnite | 7 | 52,252,483 | 51,952,947 | 0.6% | 0 |
| Dota 2 | 8 | 50,844,978 | 57,373,184 | -11.4% | ▼ 2 |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | 9 | 42,885,707 | 32,352,497 | 32.6% | ▲ 1 |
| Garena Free Fire | 10 | 38,544,212 | 26,334,111 | 46.4% | ▲ 4 |
| Call of Duty: Warzone | 11 | 38,073,729 | 38,936,732 | -2.2% | ▼ 2 |
| Rust | 12 | 33,121,876 | 26,184,026 | 26.5% | ▲ 3 |
| Apex Legends | 13 | 31,882,027 | 39,456,555 | -19.2% | ▼ 5 |
| Destiny 2 | 14 | 26,116,819 | 10,470,509 | 149.4% | ▲ 16 |
| Street Fighter 6 | 15 | 22,451,735 | 27,892,018 | -19.5% | ▼ 3 |
| Dead by Daylight | 16 | 21,991,601 | 22,078,029 | -0.4% | ▲ 2 |
| EA Sports FC 24 | 17 | 21,140,774 | 24,305,596 | -13.0% | ▼ 1 |
| PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS | 18 | 20,315,699 | 22,180,239 | -8.4% | ▼ 1 |
| Overwatch 2 | 19 | 19,431,135 | 17,601,376 | 10.4% | ▲ 1 |
| PUBG Mobile | 20 | 19,147,002 | 16,406,901 | 16.7% | ▲ 3 |
