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Twitch emotes are an oft overlooked aspect of live-streaming culture, despite being one of the most basic elements of Twitch. These tiny images contain a wealth of connotations, bridging eras in trends and creating a common shorthand for all viewers to learn, use, and build upon. Understanding the specific meaning of Twitch emotes creates a sense of belonging, with chat spams of emotes accompanying every momentous live-streaming achievement ever accomplished.
As a consequence, game publishers and brands who fail to grasp the nuances of specific Twitch emotes open themselves up to seeming tone-deaf or out-of-touch – the last thing you want in an online community. Understanding emotes means understanding streaming culture, making your messaging feel more organic. As a result, learning emotes is perhaps as important for reaching the right audience as other endemic features like Twitch tags.
In this article we’re looking at the popularity of different Twitch emotes, where they come from, and how game publishers and brands can leverage their impact. The topics covered include:
The surface-level reason viewers use emotes is to convey their emotion; either to show their response or to add intent to their message. Certainly that’s how emotes are used in text messaging and emails – but this completely misses the nuance of emotes on live-streaming. Twitch emotes bond a community together, with people who shell out for a subscription earning the right to access special emotes designated by their favorite streamers. Having a souped-up version of the streamer’s base emotes can be enough to justify paying up to $20 more per month for a Tier 3 sub (explained more fully here). Additionally, there are often specific emotes released by Twitch to promote special events, such as the SUBtember emote to celebrate discounted subscriber prices.
It might seem silly to an outside observer, but emotes really are this integral to Twitch’s sense of individuality. When the popular BibleThump emote was retired in September 2024, there was a backlash from viewers who loved using the Binding of Isaac-inspired Twitch emote as their default crying reaction. Alternatively, some emotes have very specific meanings that require an insider to fully explain, having inadvertent connotations outside of their intended use. Take, for example, the TriHard emote which was meant to be an indicator of hype but later took on racist implications based on overuse by a certain subsection of the Twitch community.
Tentative game publishers and brands might feel inclined to avoid emote usage altogether, but this is a surefire way to miss out on some of the largest Twitch audiences. “Massive Chats” (i.e. chats for popular streamers with large numbers of concurrent viewers) depend on emotes for social engagement and cohesion. Studies have proven that techniques like shorthanding, bricolage, and voice-taking are all supported by emotes because they are concise, form an easily recognized repertoire, and show the common voice of a community. The TL;DR: Emotes are crucial for large chats, and large chats are where the bulk of viewers are on Twitch.
Certain emotes are so ubiquitous that understanding their meaning and usage is mandatory for anyone chatting on Twitch. Looking purely at the most popular emotes by chat messages in 2024 reveals staple emotes like LUL, Kappa, and DinoDance at the top of the charts with 371M, 140M, and 98M messages each. LUL is a perfect example of a seemingly benign Twitch emote that actually has a long, storied history. The man pictured is YouTuber and streamer John “TotalBiscuit” Bain: Bain was much loved by the online community, and so when he passed away in 2018, this emote became one of the last remnants of his legacy. What seems like a simple laugh reaction therefore has a tight link to streaming history.
Of course this isn’t to say that every emote is so deeply layered, but the similar origin stories underpin other popular emotes. Kappa is Twitch’s flagship “sarcasm” emote, depicting Josh Deseno (a former employee of Twitch precursor Justin.TV). DinoDance amassed popularity as the first ever animated global Twitch emote, meaning an emote available to every user. A full analysis of every popular emote isn’t possible here, but the key takeaway is that popular emotes have storied histories.
Constantly spammed emotes like the HeyGuys emote appear even more often per message. HeyGuys appeared in 50M messages, but the emote itself appeared a whopping 521M times – an average of 10 emotes per message (second only to LUL). This prevalence has even spawned a toy based on the emote’s status as a meme. Spammed emotes are a double-edged sword, being more commonly seen but also more easily overlooked by viewers.
To get a better idea of how often emotes are seen, we can specifically rank emotes by their total number of impressions. Impressions numbers are much higher, with LUL sitting at 554B impressions throughout 2024 (an order of 103 greater than the number of messages). This analysis turns up some new popular emotes, such as the aforementioned BibleThump (116.2B), TwitchConHYPE (47.6B), and WutFace (44.2B). Impressions give a stronger understanding of which emotes are actually perceived by the greatest number of viewers on Twitch.
Impressions totals also reveal emotes used for certain trends throughout 2024 rising up the ranks. Take, for example, BloodTrail – a Twitch Emote depicting Super Meat Boy in a badly bruised state. Many Twitch streamers have been taking up brutal challenge streams in 2024 like hardcore runs of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. The BloodTrail emote is a perfect chat response to when a particularly hard boss continuously beats down the streamer. Another trend in 2024 has been marathon streams. It’s no surprise, then, that the ResidentSleeper emote (sometimes used to denote boredom), is being used more literally for when streamers need to sleep partway through a marathon stream.
To access the full ranges of emotes by varying degrees of popularity, check out the Stream Hatchet app:
Given the massive exposure of the examples listed above, it seems that Twitch emotes are a massively underutilized way of connecting with viewers. By making custom emotes, however, streamers, game publishers, and brands can potentially create an asset that is spread for free by Twitch users. Additionally, the extra effort of not relying on past emotes based on memes can help a new emote to stand out from the crowd. In this way, Twitch emotes could be seen as a community-nurturing initiative on the level of other live-streaming exclusive methods like Twitch Drops campaigns.
When considering how to make emotes for Twitch, it’s worth observing what has worked in the past. Popular emotes take off not just because of cute illustrations or funny expressions, but due to the moments tied to them – create a “moment” behind your emotes, or build off a well-known moment within your community. Perhaps your latest advertising campaign has a particularly iconic image that resonated with people which you can “emotify”. Or as a game publisher, your player character might have a signature pose that is easily shared. If you’re looking to go the extra mile, you can even create more eye-catching animated emotes – how to make animated emotes for Twitch is simple with their Easy Animate tool.
Once you have this emote prepared, you can share it with partnered Twitch streamers to get the ball rolling. Let’s take the example of a game publisher: Start by encouraging viewers (via your sponsored streamers) to use these emotes to react to key moments on streams associated with your game. From there, the hope is that one or two emotes take off as a more general reaction to a specific situation, and might spread to different types of content or to other channels. Providing these emotes for free is a great way to involve as much of the community as possible. VTuber emotes frequently feature chibi versions of the VTuber themselves, which allow fans to barrack for their favorite streamers by using this emote on other channels as well.
The nuts-and-bolts of Twitch emote creation and implementation are covered extensively on the Twitch blog itself, but here we’d like to cover some of the more pertinent information for people looking to understand where emotes appear on Twitch.
Not all Twitch emotes are created equal. Certain Twitch emotes are available only to subscribers or frequent donors, which is a double-edged sword: They become less visible, but they also become more desirable due to their exclusivity. For example, streamers can create Emote Modifiers for their most popular emotes to spice them up – an incentive only available to Tier 2 and Tier 3 subs. Alternatively, Cheermotes are animated emotes sent whenever a viewer donates a certain number of Bits. There are different levels of animation based on how many Bits they Cheered with to promote higher donation amounts. Both Emote Modifiers and Cheermotes are only available to Twitch Affiliates and Partners, making their usage greatly reduced.
Additionally, some emotes only exist for a limited time. Streamers can employ special emotes for events like Hype Trains to encourage viewer engagement and additional donations of Bits to keep the clock running. On a grander scale, Twitch has employed limited-time emotes to celebrate global events, like the glitched-out emotes for GlitchCon 2020. These are temporary and require being in-the-know to capitalize upon.
If the sheer variety of emotes seems overwhelming, you might be surprised to find out the emote types listed only cover Twitch-endemic emotes. A number of browser extensions exist that allow fan-made emotes to be used natively on Twitch, circumventing many of their guidelines. While these extensions are frowned upon, they are virtually omnipresent on major streamers’ chats. Some of the most prevalent extensions used include FrankerFaceZ, BTTV, and 7TV. How to add 7TV emotes to Twitch requires installing the specific 7TV extension and then choosing from a range of compatible emotes that you’d like to use on stream.
The upshot of this is that there are multiple avenues for companies to create and distribute their emotes, and which one you choose will depend on your core fanbase and marketing strategy. Twitch emotes are volatile and constantly evolving, regarding expert knowledge to navigate tactfully and to stay on top of current trends. Ensuring your brand or game feels connected to the current Twitch emote meta is crucial for capturing a contemporary audience.
To keep up to date with the latest trends and live-streaming culture updates, follow Stream Hatchet:
Twitch’s subscriber system isn’t exactly the most intuitive among the many live-streaming platforms. Between the various different types of Twitch subs, the varying pricing system, and the multitude of exclusive perks for subscribers, it can be difficult for a streamer or a brand to wrap their head around it. Twitch’s own blog is a great in-depth resource for definitions and tips, but it can be unwieldy to navigate.
In this article, we’re helping demystify Twitch subs by explaining every Twitch sub type and how they can best serve different users and promoters on Twitch. If you haven’t already, we suggest reading up on the basics of Twitch first to familiarize yourself with the platform, such as the difference between “followers” (non-paying) and “subscribers” (paying).
The topics covered below include:
Twitch subscriptions work on a monthly basis, most often requiring the viewer to renew their subscription manually. The advantage of this system is that lax viewers don’t complain to Twitch when they forget to cancel their subscription. But this manual renewing system also makes subscriber numbers volatile, with top Twitch streamers by sub count dropping suddenly at the end of each month. As a result, it’s important to understand what exactly a subscriber count means on Twitch if you’re a streamer, or if you’re looking to partner with a streamer.
For starters, only Twitch Affiliates or Twitch Partners are eligible to gain subscribers. Twitch Affiliates have a lower barrier to entry – but they still require 50 followers and an average of 3 viewers per stream. This restriction essentially ensures that beginner streamers aren’t misled into thinking they can live off their content without first building a fanbase. This is crucial, since most subscribers are concentrated on Twitch channels with greater than 500 average viewers.
Additionally, streamers don’t make all of their subscription money. “How much does a Twitch streamer make per sub?” is a difficult question to answer, but Twitch promises at least a 50/50 split of subscriber revenue. However, streamers often receive much less than 50% of subscriber revenue due to taxes, local rates (different regions offer different pricing) and processing fees which all come before that 50/50 split. Additionally, popular streamers may barter for higher splits thanks to the demand their fanbase brings to Twitch. Hence, brands should consider all of these factors together when approaching streamers for partnership to determine a fair price point.
To incentivize viewers to subscribe, Twitch has created a number of subscription options or “sub types”. These Twitch sub types mainly differ in price and the way in which they are received, but some types also have exclusive perks for extra pay. All of these sub types are united by access to ad-free viewing – perhaps the greatest incentive to subscribe (in a similar system to services like Spotify Premium).
Tiered subs are the main method of subscribing on Twitch, with viewers gaining more perks as they move up from Tier 1 through to Tier 3. Tier 1 includes almost every subscriber perk, but Tier 2 and Tier 3 subscribers get access to special emotes and badges that signal their status as a super fan. These higher Tier subscribers are really paying as a show of support rather than for some reciprocal reward, meaning they’re the most loyal viewers on Twitch. Twitch gauges this relative loyalty using Sub Points – a metric only visible to streamers themselves that is weighted based on Tier (Tier 1 = 1 point, Tier 2 = 2 points, Tier 3 = 6 points). A higher Sub Point total unlocks more custom emote slots for the streamer.
Prime subs are provided to anyone using Prime Gaming. Essentially, the viewer is given one Prime sub per month to use on any streamer they want. Although Prime Gaming is a paid service, the Prime sub itself is free and encourages viewers to experiment with supporting different channels (and, Twitch hopes, later upgrading to a paid Tiered sub). Being “free” does make Prime subs seem less valuable to streamers and brands however, as the perception is that these viewers are less committed.
As seen below, Prime subs make up 15-25% of all monthly subscriptions, with Tier 1 subs accounting for virtually all other subscriptions on Twitch. Tier 2 and Tier 3 subs make up approximately just 200K subs per month – around 1%.
Gifted subs may further explain why so many monthly subs are Tier 1. Gifted subs are paid for by pre-existing subscribers and “gifted” to other viewers. For the recipient they’re completely free – but they only last one month. Regardless, the willingness of pre-existing subs to purchase gifted subs demonstrates high fan commitment and hype around a particular streamer. In other words, gifted subs are volatile but reflect exciting new talent – 100 subs gifted on Twitch would cost $500 USD! They also expose a quirk in Twitch’s system: Gifted subs cost more on mobile, showing an odd preference against mobile users by Twitch.
Turbo subs are Twitch’s platform-wide subscription system, allowing viewers who love streaming in general (rather than one particular creator) to access ad-free viewing on the platform. Turbo subs represent faith in live streaming and Twitch on the whole, and so can be hard for brands to leverage. Regardless, Twitch Turbo can be considered a great sign of the overall health and interconnectedness of Twitch’s community.
So apart from supporting their favorite creators, what does a subscription actually get the viewer? The main reason viewers subscribe (other than ad-free viewing) is sub badges: Special icons appended to one’s username to demonstrate their commitment to a particular streamer. Twitch sub badge flairs are applied to Tier 2 and Tier 3 subscribers to really make them stand out from the crowd. These badges are the streamer’s own creations, allowing them to reward their biggest fans – although designs can also be purchased from sites like Own3d or Midjourney Twitch sub badges can leverage AI image generation for quick ideas.
The full array of subscriber benefits are listed here. These exclusive benefits apply to all Twitch sub types, unless otherwise specified:
Sometimes, viewers will subscribe to a channel simply to make use of one of Twitch’s quirks: Text-to-speech sub announcements. Although this feature is often seen in videos of people trolling streamers online, this text-to-speech feature is crucial for fans in being recognized even during a hectic stream. In this way, it’s clear that subscribing is a way for fans to be acknowledged by their idols in a meaningful manner. Getting a shoutout bonds the viewer with the streamer and strengthens their community.
To help encourage viewers to subscribe, Twitch has a number of mainstay promotional events. The biggest time of the year for subscriptions is SUBtember: An entire month in which subscription costs are discounted by up to 30% depending on the Tier. Crucially, SUBtember isn’t just for viewers: The month also incentivises streamers to get competitive and up their airtimes to attract viewers. Brands can get in on the action by partnering with streamers whose fans are feeling more generous than usual. This past SUBtember saw a massive 40% increase in new Tiered subs compared to the month prior.
In tandem with SUBtember, many streamers run marathon-length streamers aptly named subathons. Subathons see streamers extending their airtime as long as new fans keep on subscribing, encouraging new viewers to join in or pre-existing fans to gift new subs and keep the streamer on camera. Historically, subathons have given rise to some of the most subscribed Twitch streamers of all time, showcasing how event viewing can encourage otherwise disengaged viewers to contribute to their communities.
The subscriber system is a strong indicator of a streamer’s fanbase that can snowball into a cascade of gift subs for larger streamers. Knowing a steamer’s background and content is crucial for determining whether their subscriber base is genuinely loyal, or made up of transient fans that will fade after the hype dies down. Stream Hatchet can help to separate the two with our in-depth insights and expert guidance:
UPDATE: This article was updated on the 3rd of October 2024 with a complete overview of SUBtember 2024 and a full historical analysis of SUBtember.
SUBtember has just concluded: Twitch’s season of giving. Throughout September each year, Twitch offers discounts for upgrading and buying new subscriptions. This is just one of many Twitch-exclusive events that streamers and developers capitalize on to grow their community – much like Twitch Drops campaigns.
In SUBtember 2024, the event ran from the 29th of August until the 1st of October, with discounts of up to 30% off depending on the duration of subscription purchased. In a more innovative move for SUBtember, there were also two special 6-day periods: From the 12th to the 17th of September, Twitch added 10% on top of your Bits every time you Cheered for your favorite streamer. And, rounding out the event from the 26th to the 1st, Twitch gave streamers an extra Gift Sub for every 5 Gift Subs purchased for their channel.
As one can imagine, all of these benefits encourage streamers to hop onto the platform, run marathon streams, and provide special incentives to get their community tuning in. In this article, we’ll look at how successful SUBtember is at raising the number of Twitch subscriptions and which streamers benefited most from the event.
What are Subs on Twitch? Twitch subscriptions allow viewers to support and further engage with their favorite streamers. Depending on what “Tier” of subscription the viewer holds (Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3), they can access custom Twitch emotes, equip Subscriber Badges, and unlock ad-free viewing. Further complicating the issue, viewers get one free “Prime Sub” with Amazon Prime, and fans can also purchase Gift Subs for other viewers to grow the streamer’s community! Note that for the purposes of this analysis, only subs bought while streamers are online are included, but upgrading from one tier to another also counts.
In 2024, discounts on Twitch subscriptions successfully got viewers to open up their wallets. In the month of September alone, there were 16.3M new tiered sub purchases – a massive rise of 39.6% from August. Note that this value actually misses out on the first three days of SUBtember, since the event began on the 29th of August – in truth, the number of tiered subs for SUBtember would be even higher. It’s likely that in the weeks leading up to SUBtember, many viewers hold off on buying subscriptions until the discounts hit which causes a large initial burst of demand in SUBtember’s opening days.
Based purely on tiered subs, this makes SUBtember 2024 the event’s most successful edition yet. Since 2021, September has consistently seen a growth in new tiered subs compared to August – suggesting that SUBtember is effective in driving subscriber growth. This upwards trend was no doubt ignited by COVID-era demand, with 2021 seeing 31% growth in new tiered subs thanks to SUBtember. It’s worth noting, however, that Prime subs aren’t discounted at all during SUBtember. Any growth in Prime subs can’t be directly attributed to discounts… but they may be due to increased streamer presence throughout the month during subathons.
Speaking of streamers, one streamer in particular had an incredible SUBtember. In SUBtember 2024, VTuber Ironmouse gained the most subs with 320.5K new subs – a full 221K ahead of FaZe Clan’s jasontheween in second place with 99.5K new subs. Not only is this record sub growth for a SUBtember event, but it also means ironmouse is now the most subscribed Twitch streamer ever, having flown past the previous record holder Kai Cenat with 306K subs. Apart from her popular streams with PirateSoftware, ironmouse also drew attention with her annual charity subathon for the Immune Deficiency Foundation – an event that earned her Content Creator of the Year in 2023.
Although lower than ironmouse, jasontheween’s sub growth is nothing to be sneezed at either. Jasontheween passed the 100K subs mark, making him the second most subscribed Twitch streamer after ironmouse. Leveraging SUBtember to one’s own benefit depends upon a combination of awareness, fan engagement, and extra streaming hours. Some common tips for how to garner new Twitch subs during SUBtember include:
Intriguingly, the streamers with the most new subscribers aren’t simply those who generated the most hours watched over the same period. The most watched streamers between the 29th of August and the 1st of October were Junichi Kato and stableronaldo with 10.1M and 9.7M hours watched, respectively. Junichi Kato is a special case however, as his viewership was boosted by a cheating scandal response video.
Stableronaldo, on the other hand, represents a more SUBtember-related phenomenon. As a member of FaZe Clan, stableronaldo and the other members took part in a 30-day straight subathon. This explains why 4 of the top 10 streamers by hours watched during SUBtember were FaZe Clan members: Stableronaldo, plaqueboymax, Lacy, and jasontheween. As a reminder, subathons are special Twitch events in which streamers run a marathon stream and encourage viewers to subscribe for all the usual perks. Every time someone subscribes during a subathon, the clock gets extended. Combining streaming challenges, subathons, AND SUBtember together is a recipe for live-streaming success.
The impact of subathons and FaZe Clan is also reflected in the top SUBtember streams. Specifically looking at streams either tagged or mentioning “SUBtember” or “subathon”, stableronaldo’s separate subathon streams take up 3 of the top 10 spots with a total of 1.1M hours combined. However, it was German streamer Eliasn97 who snagged the top 3 most watched SUBtember/subathon streams with a combined 1.5M hours watched. Eliasn97 marathon-streamed the new EA Sports FC 25 during SUBtember, pulling in millions of hours thanks to his pedigree as an ex-esports player. Kai Cenat also snuck into the top 10 with 345K hours watched on one of his streams.
Apart from subscribers, Twitch added one extra incentive for streamers to commit to marathon streams: Extra Bits. From the 12th to the 17th of September, Twitch upped every Cheer by adding 10% of the viewers’ Bits onto their donation (as long as they donated at least 300 Bits). Obviously this Bits Bonus was meant to encourage streamers to promote Bits donations, as Partner or Affiliate streamers receive $0.01 per Bit donated.
The simplest measure of whether the Bits Bonus worked is seeing whether total Bits donations increased. During the week beginning the 9th of September, Twitch Bits totals jumped by 41.1% to 247.5K (up from 175.3K the previous week). By the next week, Bits had dropped back down – though still slightly higher thanks to 2 days being left on the Bonus Bits period. The bonus Bits promotion definitely worked then, either due to streamers pushing Bits donations or viewers feeling more generous knowing that Twitch was chipping in extra support on top.
With SUBtember over for another year and many more records broken as a result, Twitch will likely settle down a little over the coming weeks. TwitchCon showed the platform was centering itself on more community-driven events like SUBtember, including Hype Trains and Power-Ups. Stream Hatchet will be watching more of these community events as they unfold in the coming months.
To learn more about the biggest events on live-streaming platforms, follow Stream Hatchet:
Sections of the original article regarding the first week of SUBtember 2024 can be found below:
Discounts on Twitch subscriptions successfully get viewers to open up their wallets. In the week beginning the 26th of August, new subscription numbers jumped by 21% from 2.8M to 3.4M. Note that this really only accounts for the first 4 days of SUBtember, however, since the event began on the 29th of August. For the first full calendar week of SUBtember, subscriptions rose by a further 13.5% up to 3.9M. It’s likely that in the weeks leading up to SUBtember, many viewers hold off on buying subscriptions until the discounts hit – leading to a large initial burst of demand in SUBtember’s opening days.
There are some caveats to this data, however. SUBtember has notable exceptions to which subscriptions are discounted: Prime Subs aren’t included (unless they’re being converted to regular subscriptions), and subs bought through Twitch mobile don’t count (viewers have to tune into twitch.tv to receive their discount). Naturally, Gift Subs also aren’t included outside of that special 5-day window near the end of the event.
Looking at the first 7 days of SUBtember provides an insight into who the most in-demand streamers for new subscriptions are. In SUBtember 2024, VTuber Ironmouse gained the most subs in the first week with 28K new subs – a full 4.4K ahead of Kai Cenat in second place with 23.6K subs. Kai Cenat’s skyrocketing popularity through 2024 no doubt led to his swelling subscriber count. But Ironmouse’s dominance is a little more surprising. She has been increasingly popular ever since she won Content Creator of the Year in 2023 – but this recent spat of success may be more due to her recent Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 collab stream with PirateSoftware. This is backed by PirateSoftware’s own popularity, gaining 14.9K new subs himself.
Intriguingly, the streamers with the most new subscribers aren’t simply those who generated the most hours watched over the same period. The most watched streamers between the 29th of August and the 4th of September were Caedrel and Junichi Kato with 2M and 1.9M hours watched, respectively. In fact, none of the top 10 streamers by new subscribers overlap with the top 10 streamers by hours watched except for Kai Cenat.
The key reason for this apparent disconnect could be up-and-coming streamers vs. established streamers. Established streamers already have an abundance of subscribers who will have taken advantage of previous years’ deals to buy Twitch subs. Streamers like Junichi Kato (who has been popular for years) and Jynxzi (who blew up several months ago) have already caught their wave of growth. Compare this to streamers like plaqueboxmax who gained masses of new followers after joining FaZe Clan in April of 2024. Established streamers may also be less focused on crafting SUBtember-specific content, instead sticking to their regular (and popular) VALORANT and League of Legends streams.
Naturally, a number of streamers plaster their streams with subathon and SUBtember titles to let their fanbase know they’re in it for the long haul. In SUBtember, streamer collective FaZe Clan blew everyone out of the water with 9 of the top 10 streams labeled “subathon” or “SUBtember” by hours watched. Ironmouse was the only exception, with 165K hours watched during her September 2nd stream as part of her subathon. Note that these streams are separate segments of multi-hour subathon streams.
The reason for this overwhelming response is FaZe Clan’s 30-day straight subathon event, announced in style with a live-action skit. This is one of the first major events that FaZe Clan has put together since it radically changed its roster back in April of this year, bringing in four new members that have upped FaZe’s viewership dramatically. Two of these new members have performed particularly well during SUBtember so far: Plaqueboymax and jasontheween. But it was long-term member stableronaldo (who joined back in June of 2022) who brought in the biggest labeled subathon stream with 386K hours watched.
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Hunt: Showdown recently made a massive update to the base game: Hunt: Showdown 1896. This update feels like a brand-new game with a slew of content and tweaks to existing mechanics. However, developer Crytek needed a way to get the news out to the broader Hunt: Showdown community and fans of other extraction shooters like Escape from Tarkov.
One of the best ways to hype up a game’s fanbase is a Twitch Drops campaign. For the uninitiated, Twitch Drops campaigns are special events hosted on Twitch in which viewers who watch participating streamers can receive in-game loot for the featured game. In the past, we’ve looked at the mechanics of Twitch Drops campaigns and how they can be used to boost game viewership and celebrate moments with the community.
In this article, we’ll be seeing these principles in action with Hunt: Showdown 1896, including the lasting effect of its Twitch Drops campaign and the extra community efforts that Crytek employed to reinforce the game’s launch.
The Twitch Drops campaign for Hunt: Showdown 1896 ran from the 16th to the 23rd of August and, as expected, led to a dramatic improvement in viewership for the game. Comparing the week before to the week of the Twitch Drops campaign, viewership rose from 1.3M hours watched to 7.2M hours watched – a jump of 471%. Average viewership rose by a similar amount, while peak viewership doubled from 47.4K to 97K. On the 22nd of August, the developers even announced a record 100K concurrent players.
Of course, this boost wasn’t just due to the Twitch Drops campaign. Apart from the game’s new content, Crytek held a number of simultaneous deals and events to provide support for the new title. The biggest impact on Hunt: Showdown viewership was a free debut weekend on both Steam and Xbox (for Game Pass holders) where new players could try out the game for absolutely nothing. Other initiatives included a community live stream (also participating in the Twitch Drops campaign), a concert at Gamescom, and a commemorative wallpaper giveaway. Finally, Crytek planned long-term by shouting out the Hunt: Showdown community Discord and a community survey – both designed to make fans feel involved in the game’s ongoing development.
When comparing the before and after viewership for the Hunt: Showdown’s Twitch Drops campaign, things get a little more complicated. At first glance, it appears as though hours watched dropped by 34% in the week after Twitch Drops from the week before Twitch Drops. It would seem that the campaign isn’t effective… but a different perspective reveals the truth.
In actuality, the “before” figures have been inflated by an early rise in viewership on the 15th of August. The 1896 update for Hunt: Showdown actually launched one day earlier than the beginning of the Twitch Drops campaign, bringing in a daily viewership of 532K hours watched. Comparing the viewership from before this date to those days after the Twitch Drops campaign reveals a more accurate observation: A rise in hours watched of roughly 10%.
There is strong evidence that the dramatic increase in Hunt: Showdown viewership is due primarily to the Twitch Drops campaign rather than just the new 1896 content alone. Firstly, after the 23rd of August (the last day of Twitch Drops), viewership steeply drops back down to 114K hours watched. Secondly, the official Hunt: Showdown X page tweeted “callouts” to remind players about the Twitch Drops event at regular intervals. For those days featuring callouts during the Twitch Drops campaign (16th, 19th, 22nd), viewership for the game bumped back up.
It seems clear, then, that the Twitch Drops campaign helped not only provide a temporary boost to Hunt: Showdown, but created a lasting increase even in the following week as well.
Twitch Drops campaigns are not just great for the developer, however. The collaboration can also attract new eyes to participating streamers, and if they can put on a good show, those viewers may stick around long after the campaign is over.
At first, comparing viewership in the before and after periods for participating streamers alone shows that their hours watched for games other than Hunt: Showdown actually decreased by 50%. However, this was largely due to a simultaneous decrease in airtime. In actual fact, participating streamers saw a whopping 1669% surge in average minute viewership (AMA) for games other than Hunt: Showdown after the Twitch Drops campaign ended. Also note that the AMAs for other games even during the Twitch Drops campaign were also boosted by a similar amount (1492%), suggesting that viewers actively jumped from participating streamers’ Hunt: Showdown streams to their other content strands.
This positive effect tends to bounce from participating streamer to developer, building one another up. As the participating streamer sees an influx of new viewers, their confidence in Hunt: Showdown increases and encourages them to play more of the game. For that reason, we also saw a 24% increase in airtime for Hunt: Showdown among participating streamers even after the Twitch Drops campaign was over. In fact, this is almost identical to the 23% increase in airtime that Hunt:Showdown saw as a whole after the Twitch Drops campaign (shown in the first graph).
As mentioned, Twitch Drops aren’t just about gaining new followers. They’re about showing the game’s existing fanbase that the developers care and that new content is coming down the pipeline. To that end, having actively engaged members of the fanbase is even more important than simple spectators just tuning in to grab in-game loot.
In the case of the Hunt: Showdown’s Twitch Drops campaign, the game saw a slight boost in chat engagement. During the campaign, the number of unique registered viewers jumped up 62% to 11.7K, which then subsided back to 8K after the Twitch Drops campaign ended – still an overall 11% increase in URVs compared to pre-campaign levels. Put more simply, roughly one-sixth of all new users who checked out Hunt: Showdown during the Twitch Drops campaign stuck around after the campaign was over. This is even more impressive considering the “before campaign” figures include the update’s launch day.
It’s not all rosy, however. Chat participation dropped both during and after the Twitch Drops campaign by roughly 9%, while the number of messages dropped 11% after the campaign. This drop in chat engagement may be due to having less speculation around the new update which would have fueled pre-update discourse. Regardless, nearly 50% chat participation is still great engagement for an FPS game – perhaps the difficulty of Hunt: Showdown contributes to viewer desire to discuss strategies online.
Twitch Drops campaigns benefit the developer through increased hours watched, the participating streamer through new viewers, and the fanbase through new in-game loot and a flood of players in matchmaking. It’s worth remembering that the reason for Hunt: Showdown’s successful Twitch Drops campaign was that it didn’t stand alone: It acted as a promotional event for new content and a sign of faith that the live service title would continue to release exciting updates going forward. Stream Hatchet will be watching for the next big Twitch Drops event in the coming months.
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Konami has always nurtured a varied portfolio of entertainment-based properties. Konami’s video game dominance in the 90’s led a generation to associate it with console-based gaming. But Konami also invests in arcade games, rhythm games, pachinko, Olympic-level sports clubs, and, crucially, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game (TCG). In 2015, Konami further diversified by shifting their focus away from console gaming towards mobile games.
And yet, Konami retains its link to the mainstream live-streaming-centric gaming arena of today through video game adaptations of its famous TCG. Yu-Gi-Oh! was hailed as the top-selling card game of all time in 2011, and continues this dominance as TCGs transition into digital form. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the original card game’s release in Japan, and the franchise is thriving thanks to the most recent video game in the series: Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel.
In this article, we’re looking at the success of Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel since its release, which streamers are engaging with the game, and how Konami is situated in the live-streaming space.
Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel pulls in viewership as the go-to digital form of the game in 2024. In the past 12 months, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel has generated 29.6M hours watched across all live-streaming platforms. The previous main Yu-Gi-Oh! digital card game, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, saw its viewership fall off upon the release of Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel. However, even 8 years after release, the game has pulled in 3M hours watched annually.
No matter which title you look at, one trend in viewership stands out: Yu-Gi-Oh! games receive an almost equal amount of their viewership from YouTube when compared to Twitch. This varies greatly from other digital card games that are primarily Twitch-centric. In fact at some points (for reasons explored below), YouTube viewership actually outstrips Twitch viewership. The relative preference for Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel content on YouTube no doubt comes from both the game’s and Konami’s main audience being in Japan, where streamers prefer the Google-backed platform to Twitch.
Regardless, it would behoove Konami to grow their Twitch user base through more community-centric campaigns. We’ve seen in the past how initiatives like Twitch Drops campaigns can greatly boost viewership (and therefore player engagement) for digital card games – such as Hearthstone’s 25th anniversary celebration. In fact, community-focused initiatives have also worked for Yu-Gi-Oh!: January 2023 saw a 70% rise in Twitch viewership from two months prior thanks to both the Duelist Cup in December 2022 and Yu-Gi-Oh! Day North America in January 2023.
The geographical transition of the 90’s anime boom is reflected in the top streamers for Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel. Of the top 10 Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel streamers, 5 are from Japan and 4 from the U.S.. The two countries are each represented by the top two streamers with significantly higher average minute viewerships (AMAs) than their competitors: あまくだり and Dkayed with AMAs of 5.8K and 4.4K, respectively. The one outlier on the list, 인간젤리, is a less frequent Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel streamer who has since switched to Chzzk.
Not represented among these streamers, however, are a subsection of streamers who are integral to Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel’s continued success: VTubers. Looking back at the monthly viewership data, distinct peaks in November of each year can be attributed to VTuber impact. Nijisanji, a VTuber agency and collective, puts on an annual Master Duel Festival featuring mega-popular VTubers like Kuzuha and 社築. This event alone has seen spikes in YouTube viewership of 413% and 360% per year.
At the moment, Yu-Gi-Oh! games offer Konami’s strongest foothold in the live-streaming arena. Over the past 12 months, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel has generated nearly one-third (32.5%) of all online viewership for Konami’s library of titles. Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, the older title, also contributed a significant 3.5%. The relative popularity of Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel among Konami’s games on live streaming is understandable: The game is F2P and players can craft a competitive deck immediately without sinking too much money into the game. Additionally, the game’s constantly evolving meta and numerous previously-released cards rely upon community discourse to educate newcomers and stay up-to-date on the best decks.
Other Konami games simply aren’t as well suited to live streaming, but still perform admirably. Take Sports games, for example: The second most-popular title, with 17.2%, is eFootball 2024 (a modern continuation of Konami’s successful Pro Evolution Soccer series). Powerful Pro Baseball 2024-2025 hit 8.7% of total Konami game viewership thanks, again, to VTubers engaging with the game.
The other minor hits on live streaming are series that have remakes planned for this year. The Metal Gear Solid franchise has 11.6% viewership with the Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater remake coming out soon. Meanwhile, the Silent Hill franchise has 3.4% thanks to the upcoming Silent Hill 2 remake (which hopes to capitalize on the horror remake renaissance sparked by Capcom’s Resident Evil remakes). Several massive Konami franchises are still absent, however, including Castlevania, Bomberman, and Contra.
With the planned shift away from hardcore console gaming, it appears Konami may not be interested in the live-streaming market dominated by live service titles. This is a shame: The success of Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel shows what live streaming can do in terms of maintaining a loyal following for Konami. Seeing more ambitious experiments like 2018’s Bombergirl MOBA game (which presaged the popularity of waifu-titles like Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero) could lead to Konami striking gold on live streaming with their beloved characters and IP.
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The past decade has been ruled by Marvel mania, with superheroes flooding the realms of film, TV, toys, merchandise, and IRL events. Video games have dabbled in superhero IP since the medium’s origins, but until now there have been few Marvel-backed video games that have found success on live-streaming platforms.
Game publisher NetEase hopes to change this with the upcoming release of Marvel Rivals: A hero PVP shooter in the style of Overwatch and Concord. Overwatch is a particularly apt comparison, given NetEase’s past experience with bringing Blizzard’s title to the Chinese market. Along with NetEase’s hero shooter credentials and past live-streaming successes like Once Human, Marvel Rivals looks set to impress upon its debut.
In this article, we’re taking a look at the pre-release hype for Marvel Rivals based on its recent Twitch Drops campaigns and getting a glimpse into which sections of the Marvel fanbase the game is most likely to appeal to when it comes out.
From the 25th of July to the 3rd of August, there were three separate rounds of Twitch Drops for Marvel Rivals that each offered viewers the chance to obtain a closed beta access key if they watched for at least 60 minutes. Twitch Drops campaigns are crucial to the success of a game’s marketing campaign, combining community events with influencer marketing.
In the case of Marvel Rivals, the Twitch Drops were a resounding success. Over the three rounds, 4.7M hours of Marvel Rivals content was watched with a peak viewership during the first event of 109K. The reward for all three rounds was the same – closed beta access keys – so it stands to reason that hours watched dropped for the second and third rounds by 52% and 37%, respectively. However, the average concurrent viewers still stayed relatively stable, only dropping by 28% between the first and second rounds of Twitch Drops.
With so many participating channels, it behooves publishers to observe which streamers fans turn to for content. In the case of Marvel Rivals, the most popular content creator during the Twitch Drops campaigns was xQc with an average minute viewership (AMA) of 24.6K.
However, there were multiple streamers who far outperformed xQc in terms of pure hours watched. Shroud generated 187K hours watched while still commanding a respectable AMA of 16.4K. Further down the list we have the ultra-devoted Marvel Rivals streamers who turned their full attention towards covering the game. Necros, for example, saw a whopping 543K hours watched out of his 96 hours of airtime. While celebrity streamers like xQc and Shroud may pull in big numbers for hyped streaming events, it will be more dedicated streamers like Necros, mL7support, and Emongg who are likely to stick around after the game’s release.
The Twitch Drops events offered a fantastic way to bring the community together and gain some insights on their opinions about Marvel Rivals. Looking at chat mentions for the game’s title over the past three months, an incredible 177K mentions of “Marvel Rivals” were made on Twitch.
We can go further though, looking at the mentions of specific Marvel characters to gauge which heroes are garnering the most attention. Three leaders stand out at the top of the pack: Groot, Venom, and Hulk, with 62K, 57K, and 55K chat mentions, respectively, over the past three months. Groot’s absurdly high chat mention is most likely due to the meme of repeating the character’s name (much as the character themselves uses). Venom is an interesting one, with his play style drawing comparisons to Winston in Overwatch. All three characters are repeatedly featured near the top of speculative tier lists for Marvel Rivals.
Looking at chat mentions for characters that haven’t been announced as heroes in Marvel Rivals may offer some insight into who fans want to see in the game. The two most popular characters are Deadpool and Wolverine with 14K and 10K chat mentions each. However, their numbers are no doubt inflated by the recent box office success of the Deadpool & Wolverine movie. Beyond these two, the most popular characters are members of the original Avengers from the MCU: Hawkeye and Captain America, with 2.6K and 2.4K chat mentions, respectively.
It’s worth noting that Marvel Rivals is the definite primary driver behind chat mentions, with every character included in the game garnering more chat mentions than non-included characters (with a couple of rare exceptions).
As mentioned earlier, Marvel has had only a few big successes on live-streaming. In the past year, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 performed well with 21% of all Marvel game viewership, while the digital card game MARVEL SNAP dominated with half of all Marvel game viewership on live streaming. But amazingly, despite not having released yet, Marvel Rivals has already generated close to 15% of all Marvel game viewership over the past 12 months. This, combined with the live-streaming popularity of other hero shooters, is a clear indicator that the game will become Marvel’s flagship live streaming series upon its release.
Hopefully, Marvel Rivals will also help to diversify Marvel’s global reach. At the moment, looking at the past months again, two-thirds of all Marvel game viewership comes from English-speaking audiences (with European language-speakers following behind). Given the popularity of the hero shooter genre in other markets such as Asia and Africa, Marvel Rivals could break this trend. NetEase is also more-than-familiar with the Chinese market, perhaps providing a foothold for Marvel games in the region.
Still, Marvel Rivals faces fierce competition in the live streaming space from previously established shooters like Overwatch 2, VALORANT, and XDefiant. Splitting its audience with these titles after the initial hype dies down will be the true test of whether the game has staying power. Stream Hatchet will track the success of the game when it comes out in the coming year.
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With any social media platform, there’s going to be an uneven distribution of fans among the various creators. As early adopters turned into big-name celebrity streamers, it became harder and harder to discover new talent flooding onto Twitch. This has led to a small group of streamers holding the lion’s share of paying Twitch subscribers.
But what does this distribution actually look like? In this article, we’re looking at the distribution of subscribers among a range of differently-sized streamers to determine how many channels fit into each “weight class”, so to speak. We’re also looking at the pros and cons of reaching out to differently-sized subscribers for sponsorship opportunities.
It’s shocking just how many of the total number of streamers have an average audience of less than ten people. 61% of all channels have tiny consistent audiences of less than ten people, yet they account for just 4.4% of all subscribers.
Sponsors rarely look at channels of this size largely due to a discoverability issue – how do you find channels this small? They are also generally less proven content creators, which can make them unreliable partners. However, ten people are ten people: Getting a brand in front of them will stand out far more than sponsoring a mega channel that frequently collaborates with multiple sponsors. Sponsors can also pay far less to small channels as they offer much-needed credibility.
Moving up to mid-sized channels, their credibility starts to increase. Channels with between 11 and 100 average viewers account for 33% of total channels, whilst holding 37% of all subscribers.
This increased subscriber count generally means fans who are willing to part with their money. Plus, these mid-sized channels are hungrier for growth and willing to prove their professionalism. However, choosing these mid-sized channels requires expert knowledge of their core fan base to target fans effectively. When choosing to sponsor a channel in this range, a channel with more than 25 average viewers is recommended since just over one-fifth of their followers are generally subscribers.
Finally, we have the celebrity streamers: A small group of streamers with true influencer status to rival other social media platforms. Celebrity streamers with more than 100 average viewers make up just 6% of all Twitch streamers, but have 58.6% of all subscribers.
These are the big fish who create an idol culture around themselves, obviously lending massive reach to any sponsors who partner with them. But of course, their large reach and easy discoverability make them highly sought-after partners, and that will drive up the cost of partnering. Partnering with a celebrity streamer means competing for attention with other brands as a result.
Targeting creators in different tiers may give marketers the best bang for their buck – especially when finding a niche creator with that many followers. Alternatively, looking for a big follower who happens to already love a specific product may give that sponsor an edge when reaching out.
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For the Twitch viewer who isn’t already a committed fan of any particular streamer, Twitch tags are their primary method for discovering new content. Twitch’s Search function gives weight to tags on streams (as well as looking at stream titles), but viewers can also specifically find tags alone by heading to Twitch’s Browse page. Perhaps the most powerful use of tags though is their function as hashtags (like on X) that can be clicked on directly to find similar content.
In essence, tags are how people find content that matches their specific interests.
In this article, we’re looking at the 30 most popular tags on Twitch and exploring the trends among them, including types of tags, who uses these tags, and how brands and developers can make use of these tags to get their product to the live streaming audience.
But first: Some notes on Twitch tag data!
Tag data isn’t foolproof for a number of reasons that bear understanding before analysis. For starters, Twitch has three types of tags: Automatic tags, category tags, and custom tags. Automatic tags include language tags to denote the streamer’s spoken language, and category tags can be applied to game genres or specific game titles. For the purpose of analysis here, we’re looking exclusively at custom tags.
Additionally, custom tags don’t automatically convert between languages. An English streamer might add the tag “autism” to show their stream is autism-friendly. But a French speaker with the same intention will add the tag “autisme”. These tags therefore aren’t counted together. For this reason, tags that cross language barriers (“anime”) or are internet-friendly acronyms (“IRL”) tend to rank more highly.
Finally, streamers often interpret tags in their own manner. This can be due to many reasons: They may be “blanket tagging” their content (when creators use the same tag on all of their streams even when their content for the day is different). Alternatively, they may use known popular tags to boost their viewership (such as Caedrel or xQc using the “VTuber” tag). Or, as one last example, they might use an FPS tag for a GTA V stream, considering all shooters to be FPS titles. Due to this subjectivity in tagging, some tags become more popular than others.
Five broad categories of tags are used by streamers:
Content Tags signal what kind of action is actually taking place on screen. This can be quite broad, given that Twitch streams cover any number of topics. Naturally, these General Content Tags rank very highly: Gaming, IRL, and variety tags each rank in the top 30 with the IRL tags ranking highest amongst these at 300M hours watched throughout 2024 so far. This is most likely because IRL streamers have a greater need to separate themselves from the mainstream gaming audience that Twitch was founded upon.
However, some General Content Tags still outperform IRL. Anime is the most popular General Content Tag at 404M hours watched, due to the internet’s love for anime and the ability for anime to cross boundaries between gaming and IRL content. Esports also ranks highly with 328M hours watched, with viewers flocking to Twitch for the vast majority of esports events. Esports can also cover both competitive streams and co-streamers.
Specific Content Tags are essentially sub-categories within General Content Tags. These provide a far clearer image of the action on display in the stream, which means fewer viewers but also a more niche and dedicated audience.
Behind FPS, which is technically a game genre tag, the Roleplay tag is the most popular Specific Content Tag with 193K hours watched. Roleplay is popular primarily due to GTA V roleplays, which have whole servers and communities dedicated to collaborating together on Twitch’s most-watched game. The RP tag is popular for the same reason (as the acronym for roleplaying). The NoPixel tag is related to these GTA V roleplays, as the NoPixel server is the most populated GTA V server for roleplaying.
Other Specific Content Tags are an assembly of well-known content on the internet, including Speedrun (completing a game as quickly as possible), AMA (Ask Me Anything streams where creators chat with viewers), and ASMR, which is surprisingly popular at 151M hours watched.
Identity Tags popped up when Twitch removed Communities in 2018, giving people with a shared identity the ability to find like-minded people. Following a streamer generally means seeing some part of yourself in them, relating to their experience. Identity tags make it easier for viewers to find this connection. Although some worry that trolls and hate groups might use Identity Tags to harass streamers, the addition is generally seen as a welcome one.
What’s surprising, perhaps, is that Identity Tags are the two most popular tags on Twitch. VTuber is the most popular tag on Twitch with 583K hours watched – 100K more than the second most popular tag. This makes sense given that there is no other guaranteed way for a viewer to easily search for VTubers alone, and VTuber is a term that even non-English-speaking streamers will use. As mentioned earlier though, these numbers may be inflated by non-VTubers jumping on the tag to boost viewership.
ADHD is the second most popular tag on Twitch with 483K hours watched, straddling a couple of different categories. For the purpose of discussion, ADHD is considered an Identity Tag as people with ADHD like to watch neurodivergent streamers with a similar worldview as themselves. However, some streamers also use ADHD to refer to the type of content they’re producing. This may be highly varied content that they’re jumping between (referencing their own short attention span), or even competitive challenges that require multitasking.
Campaign tags are highly specific tags that are only used during Twitch campaigns to signal the creator’s participation to potential viewers. These are defined by Twitch and are generally automatically assigned to streams when they’ve turned on their Twitch campaign participation.
The only campaign referenced in the top 30 tags is a Twitch Drops campaign: A community event in which viewers who tune into participating streamers unlock in-game loot based on how many hours they watch. Twitch Drops campaigns are a fantastic way for game developers to celebrate a milestone, or to reinvigorate their game’s popularity by bringing the fanbase together. You can learn more about how to effectively use these campaigns for your own game in Stream Hatchet’s Twitch Drops Campaign article.
Participants in a Twitch Drops campaign have the tag DropsEnabled automatically put onto their streams, explaining the 464M hours watched for this tag. However “drops” also has 140M hours watched, either due to streamers covering their bases or due to streamers discussing and reviewing the drops from recent campaigns (rather than participating in the event themselves).
Lastly, we have Vibe Tags: Tags that give the viewer an idea of the atmosphere they can expect when tuning in. With games covering so many genres, it’s easy to see how a hardcore, “sweaty” gaming stream might not appeal to someone looking for a more comical, laidback atmosphere.
Three of the most common Vibe Tags are all fairly similar: Chill, Chatty, and Cozy. All three imply an emphasis on small-scale, mostly IRL content that is less about the game and more about the comforting atmosphere of the streamer presenting the game. Additionally, these tags offer a more concrete way of filtering out the ever-popular esports and competitive content on Twitch. “Chill” alone has 276M hours watched with its internet-friendly wording.
The opposite of this atmosphere is the LOUD tag, appropriately stylized in all caps (although tags are not actually case-sensitive). LOUD may also be capitalized due to the Brazilian esports team of the same name, with some of this tag’s traffic coming from esports fans. LOUD is often combined with the funny tag, with Twitch humor generally featuring noisy displays of high-emotion entertainment. LOUD is slightly less popular than chill, with just 188K hours watched.
The best tagging strategy involves combining all of these tags together, which streamers do naturally as they define the content type, identity, and vibe of their stream. But oddly, Twitch doesn’t allow for native filtering of streams by multiple tags simultaneously. Thankfully, you can find tools online that will do this for you, such as this one from software engineer crunchprank.
However, getting the most out of Twitch tags requires expert knowledge of the live-streaming landscape to understand which tags target which demographics. An indie game dev with a casual crafting game has very different tagging needs to, say, an energy drink company. Understanding tags is the key to finding your audience on Twitch.
Stream Hatchet can provide the insight necessary to make use of tags effectively, suggesting content strands that best align with your company’s needs. To chat with one of our experienced consultants, click below:
For new entrants to the live-streaming arena, the sheer mass of information can be overwhelming. Platforms, streamers, gaming titles, variety content – with so many interesting trends emerging, evolving, and fading at the lightspeed rate of online discourse, it can be hard to separate what’s important. To help you demystify this industry, we’re covering the basics of the most popular live-streaming platform: Twitch.
What is Twitch exactly? Twitch is a video live-streaming platform that focuses on video game content, but Twitch streamers produce a wide variety of content from vlogs to music to talk shows to artwork. The Twitch audience is composed of gamers, travelers, esports fans, musicians, and creatives – a diverse online community that acts as its own social media site. Through their bonds with Twitch streamers, viewers decide what games they should play, what places they should visit, and what hobbies they should adopt.
As such, advertising your product on Twitch is a fantastic way of reaching a mass, devoted audience. Understanding the platform means understanding how best to reach that audience.
Five Crucial Points to Understand About Twitch:
One of the most powerful tools at your disposal is information: Access Stream Hatchet’s in-depth repository of streaming data to see chat mentions on Twitch and current trends among popular streamers.
Twitch’s origins date back to 2007 with a small start-up called Justin.tv – a 24/7 broadcast of the founder, Justin Kan, living his ordinary life as a reality show-style experiment. Within a year, Justin.tv had expanded to allow other people the same ability to stream their lives online with 1M registered users joining the site. Although IRL content had been the project’s origin, gaming soon dominated the platform. Kan, along with his collaborators Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt, saw promise in gaming content and decided to create a spin-off site. On the 6th of June 2011, Twitch was launched.
Twitch streaming became a haven for online games such as Counter-Strike, World of Warcraft, and Dota. Seminal viral events captured the internet’s attention such as Twitch Plays Pokémon, further growing the platform and driving it to become the fourth-largest source of peak internet traffic in the U.S. by 2014. A bidding war for the burgeoning platform broke out in Silicon Valley, with bids from Google, Yahoo, and Amazon. It was Amazon that would eventually buy Twitch, paying $970M USD for the site and capitalizing on the twin booming industries of live streaming and gaming. With capital from a large tech company, Twitch expanded into different content strands, making partnerships with major esports organizations and traditional sponsors.
With great success came great scrutiny, however. Twitch has been rocked by many controversies over the years, such as streamers posting illegal or unsafe content, concerns over Twitch’s contribution to youth gambling addiction, and waves of user dissatisfaction regarding revenue sharing. Despite it all, Twitch weathered the storm under the helm of CEO and co-founder Emmett Shear. When Shear announced he would be stepping down as CEO and handing over the reins to computer scientist Dan Clancy in March of 2023, Twitch’s 12-year era of stability seemed to be at an end.
But the service Shear, Kan, and the other creators who founded Twitch have formed feels too big to fail now. Below, we’ll cover the current state of Twitch in 2024. But first, let’s examine the inner workings of the platform these pioneers created and nurtured over the last 13 years.
Registering to use Twitch is completely free and always has been, with the platform being founded on the principle that anyone with the hardware to run Twitch should be able to stream on it. But that raises an obvious question: How does the platform make money?
The primary method of monetization comes from streamers themselves. Streamers are able to generate money by running ads on their streams, and they have full control over ad distribution: Streamers decide how many ads they run, when these ads run, and how long the ads run for. Twitch then splits the revenue with streamers, with the streamer’s portion varying between 50-70% depending on what type of partnership arrangement the streamer has. This split also applies to other revenue streams such as paid subscriptions and “Bits” – a virtual in-platform currency that allows viewers to donate to their favorite streamers as a show of support. How much does a Twitch streamer make then? That depends not just on this revenue split, but also merchandise and sponsorship deals with brands and publishers.
However, Twitch doesn’t rely solely on direct revenue from its streamers. The platform has a number of partners with which it collaborates, offering its stream-hosting services in exchange for exposure and increased web traffic. These include game developers, esports organizations, and unique brand sponsors for advertising campaigns (such as fast food chain Wendy’s partnering during March Madness back in 2022). Twitch even has its own merchandise, trading on the iconic purple branding by selling hoodies, bags, and hats via its “Loot Cave”. For non-Twitch related purchases, Twitch also leverages its parent company Amazon by providing affiliate links for shopping on Amazon.com.
By far the most lucrative collaborators for Twitch are esports organizations. Twitch is home to many of the official channels for major esports tournaments, and it is the go-to platform for co-streamers of these events as well. Understanding how to partner with Twitch and/or ideal co-streamers can make or break an event.
If you’re an esports event organizer, Stream Hatchet can help: We can identify the best co-streamers to widen your reach, find sponsors to fund your project, and provide detailed analytics to track your event’s performance.
Chat with a Stream Hatchet Analyst today to get started customizing your streaming event:
As implied above, streamers are the lifeblood of Twitch’s business. Although streamers rely upon Twitch streaming for exposure, Twitch relies on entertaining, expert streamers in their fields who can attract viewers to the platform to generate revenue. As of 2022, there were 7.6M registered streamers using the platform. Sifting out the noteworthy from the masses requires an understanding of how popularity is measured on Twitch.
Twitch streamers have two primary types of fans: “Followers” and “Subscribers”. Followers are viewers who have opted to receive notifications from a specific channel, which is completely free. Subscribers, on the other hand, require a financial commitment, and in return they receive custom emotes and badges. As a result, streamers often have far more Followers than Subscribers. For example, the most “Followed” streamer of all time is Fortnite player Ninja with over 19M Followers, whereas the most “Subscribed” streamer of all time is IRL and marathon streamer Kai Cenat with over 300K Subscribers.
Both of these counts are important: Followers may be less committed to their streamer than Subscribers, but they’re just as likely to tune in for big events. Subscribers, on the other hand, are more likely to pay for streamer-related merchandise or endorsements. Generous streamers and Subscribers can spread the love by “gifting” a sub to other users. These users get to subscribe to the channel for free for a month, getting a taste of exclusive benefits and, potentially, staying on for longer if they like what they see. On Twitch, what is a gift bomb then? A gift bomb is simply when one subscriber purchases a bunch of gift subs at once and hands them, creating a hyped up moment for the Twitch streamer and their audience.
Read this article for a full explanation of Twitch subs and their implications for advertisers.
Understanding which metrics are most relevant for your use case depends entirely upon your product or event, what content the streamer produces, how often they produce content, and who they produce it for. You can find a simple ranking of the top streamers on Twitch (and other platforms) on the Stream Hatchet website.
Whether you have a brand you’re marketing or a game you’re promoting, you could of course reach out to a streamer directly and ask if they would be interested in reviewing your product. This might involve giveaways, unboxings, or simple channel sponsorships. But Twitch has far stronger hands-on opportunities to get your brand out there.
The first are the in-person events, such as the aforementioned esports tournaments that Twitch hosts on its platform. Sponsoring esports events if you’re a brand, or creating these events for your game if you’re a developer, can be a fantastic way to tap into the largest online community of gamers out there. Even games that aren’t competitive can hold esports tournaments, such as the surprisingly active world of Farming Simulator esports. Alternatively, Twitch holds its own convention every year, TwitchCon, in which streamers and their fans congregate to celebrate the live-streaming community. Getting your product featured at TwitchCon is a surefire way to reach a passionate, active audience.
Over the years, Twitch has also developed a number of specific campaign types unique to the platform. Earlier we mentioned in passing Twitch Plays Pokémon, just one example of a Twitch Plays event in which the viewers for a stream are given control over a character in the game using their chat entries. This can be a great publicity event for game launches or updates to your games, as seen recently with the Twitch Plays Akuma event for Street Fighter 6.
Alternatively, Twitch Drops campaigns are a popular way to bring your community into one place by offering them free in-game loot in exchange for watching a certain number of hours of participating streamers’ content. Brawl Stars‘ Twitch Drops campaign was a perfect example of this strategy, raising viewership of the game on Twitch by over 600%. These Twitch Drops campaigns can be further targeted by partnering with specific streamers to produce customized skins and badges, as seen with the recent Rust Twitch Drops event.
There are many types of stream marathons on Twitch as well, where streamers provide extended coverage of a particular game or event to make event viewing out of their regular content. The most popular month for marathons and “subathons” is SUBtember – a month-long discounted event for new subscribers. You can read more about SUBtember here.
Whichever campaign or promotional strategy you choose, you’ll need to gauge the success of your strategy with customized, detailed data. Stream Hatchet provides a robust array of services to help you design, execute, and track your Twitch Drops campaigns.
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What is Twitch now? How does the platform currently stand? With 31M users daily, it can feel that Twitch is almost too big to fail. So many streamers depend on Twitch for their livelihoods.
But, as with any large company, Twitch fights off controversies from within and without. Consumer watchdogs are constantly hounding Twitch over its community guidelines to make sure the platform is safe for children. In particular, Twitch (along with other streaming platforms such as Kick) has always struggled with limiting gambling content on its platform (which critics say can lead to youth gambling) and restricting sexual content. Twitch’s struggle to achieve profitability has also led to backlash from the very creators it hopes to foster, creating a constant push-pull dynamic between the platform and its users.
Twitch has weathered these controversies so far, spreading from its hub in the U.S. around the world. 36% of all Twitch users come from the United States and Canada combined, with Brazil and Germany following in second and third place. Overall, just 16 countries capture 88.7% of all Twitch users globally. Notably, South Korea should no longer be included in this list as Twitch shut down in the region as recently as February of 2024. Regardless, even in regions where Twitch isn’t present, these countries’ respective streaming platforms often follow the template set out by Twitch.
Lastly, it’s worth looking at which content is popular on Twitch as of the time of writing. Looking at single categories alone, non-gaming is surprisingly the most popular with 13.9% of all hours watched on Twitch over the last 12 months. However, this ignores the fact that the gaming genres taken together far outweigh this number.
Among gaming, the top two genres represent two different strands of Twitch viewers. First-Person Shooters make up 13.4% of all viewership, led by major esports titles like Rainbow Six Siege and VALORANT with hardcore gamer fans. Meanwhile, Action-Adventure titles like Elden Ring and Cyberpunk 2077 represent 11.6% of all viewership as constituted by the legions of single-player game fans. Understanding which games appeal to which sub-communities of the Twitch user base is the key to targeting marketing appropriately.
This is far from every detail one should know about Twitch, but the information provided herein is a fantastic starting point for anyone looking to do deeper reading into the topic. Before beginning your first foray into advertising on Twitch, we strongly suggest doing further reading on Twitch’s official blog and, of course, playing around with the site yourself. Of course, it can help to have a guiding hand when entering the live-streaming arena. For personalized advice, reach out to us at Stream Hatchet.
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Rust has consistently remained among the most popular games on live-streaming platforms, frequently featuring in the top 10 games per month. As the standard-bearer for the survival genre, Rust is typically an indicator of the popularity of similar games such as the breakout hit Palworld and the recently released V Rising.
In May, Rust surpassed even its own lofty expectations with its latest community event: A Twitch Drops campaign. From the 25th to the 31st of May, viewers who watched participating Rust streams on Twitch were able to unlock special skins and in-game loot. Developer Facepunch Studios partnered with top streamers to draw in the biggest crowd yet for the 29th edition of its Twitch Drops campaigns. It’s worth looking at precisely which streamers contributed to the success of this latest community event.
Despite only lasting one week, the Rust Twitch Drops event pulled in a massive 17.8M hours watched. Viewership peaked at 264K concurrent users on the first day of the campaign as viewers attempted to grab in-game loot as quickly as possible. This high first-day viewership was even strong enough to propel Rust to the number 1 most-watched game on Twitch for the 25th of May – that means it even beat out the streaming behemoth GTA V. Despite these large numbers, only 10K channels actually streamed Rust content during this time. This suggests that Facepunch Studios did an excellent job of selecting key popular streamers to draw in viewers.
Among those streamers, xQc led the way with an average minute viewership (AMA) of 48K. It was hardcore Rust streamer Trainwreckstv who brought in the highest hours watched of 1.3M, however, generating the viewership from 54 hours of airtime. The reason why these particular streamers were so popular was due to more than just their content: Facepunch Studios created exclusive streamer-specific loot that could only be obtained by watching the designated streamer. For example, Emiru viewers could obtain an assault rifle skin, while xQc viewers obtained a custom chestplate.
Facepunch Studios went further, creating specific rewards for members of the Rust-associated Discord servers Rustoria and Rust Kingdoms. This multifaceted strategy meant that diehard Rust players needed to tune in to multiple streams to collect every piece of loot – a clever strategy that no doubt contributed to the phenomenal success of the Twitch Drops campaign.
This recent event proves that Twitch Drops campaigns require intimate knowledge of one’s community to be an effective promotion strategy. Developers should take note to help with their own future events. Stream Hatchet will see if Rust can top itself with the next round of its Twitch Drops campaign in the coming months.
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Arena Breakout: Infinite is the upcoming PC version of the mobile game Arena Breakout which was released in June of 2023. As developer MoreFun Studios ramps up for a full desktop expansion of the original game, it has taken measures to bond the community together. To this end, Arena Breakout: Infinite recently hosted a series of Twitch Drops events that reward viewers with Steam keys to access the game’s closed beta. With tens of thousands of keys given away per event, MoreFun Studios is gradually welcoming an influx of early adopters to the game.
Publisher Tencent is hoping that this Tactical FPS can break into the competitive live-streaming scene by dethroning the current smash hit Escape from Tarkov. Although closed beta interest does not necessarily translate to sales upon release, it’s worth looking at how the recent Twitch Drops campaign has assisted in drumming up excitement for Arena Breakout: Infinite’s release.
In total, there have been six Twitch Drops events from the 9th of May through to the 24th of May. Looking at the viewership for Arena Breakout: Infinite across the six days of these events, the total hours watched comes to 5.9M – nearly 1M per day. Almost every day (except the first) saw a spike in viewership as a result of the Twitch Drops event, with the largest spike coming on Day 5 with a 101% boost to viewership (from 27K hours watched the day before to 119K hours watched on the day). There is no doubt that the Twitch Drops campaign was an effective strategy for MoreFun Studios to pull their community onto live-streaming platforms.
However, the viewership for Arena Breakout: Infinite throughout May was impacted by a couple of other community events. Viewership started high on the 8th of May thanks to a pre-release of 1,500 beta access keys to creators with more than 3,000 followers. This move was no doubt intended to spark viewers’ interest and spread the word about the forthcoming Twitch Drops events. Then, on the 26th of May, a separate Million Loot Challenge event was held for Twitch streamers with over 10K followers. This would explain the 33% surge of hours watched on that day.
The concerted effort to promote Arena Breakout: Infinite through consistent campaigns on Twitch demonstrates an exceptional level of dedication on the part of the game’s marketing team. It’s clear that Tencent has high aspirations for Arena Breakout: Infinite, perhaps even hoping it will rival the mainstay Tactical FPS in esports: Rainbow Six Siege. Stream Hatchet will review the game’s performance on live streaming upon its full release.
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Street Fighter 6 is approaching the end of its first year since release, and to mark the occasion Capcom has released the last fighter of its Year 1 roster: The Demon Akuma. The official trailer showcases Akuma’s rage-fuelled abilities, piquing the interest of the game’s fanbase.
To give players a chance to whet their appetites, Capcom announced a Twitch Plays event to coincide with Akuma’s release on the 22nd of May. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Twitch Plays is a setup in which the entire viewing community can control a character on-screen using chat messages (the most famous example being the original Twitch Plays Pokémon back in February 2014). In this case, the official Capcom USA channel allowed players to jointly control Akuma in a chaotic, frenzied event.
The Twitch Plays Akuma event was a phenomenal success. On the day of the event, 1.6M hours of Street Fighter 6 content was watched with a peak viewership of 133K. This marked a jump of 123% from just 743K hours watched the day prior. Perhaps even more impressively, 4.8K unique channels created Street Fighter 6 content during the day, many of them covering the Twitch Plays event (along with a host of Japanese-speaking streamers participating in other events hosted by Capcom).
The overwhelming popularity of the event most likely comes down to the dedication of the Street Fighter 6 community. EVO Tokyo, for example, showcased the best fighting game talent from around the world in April of 2024, with Street Fighter 6 as its main event on the tournament’s final day. Junichi Kato’s Hyper Game Tournament similarly featured Street Fighter 6 as the headline attraction. While speculators often lament the fighting genre’s declining demand on live-streaming platforms as it cedes ground to MOBAs and Shooters, this string of well-viewed events suggests that the genre has life in it yet.
Keeping up this trend is crucial for Capcom, for which Street Fighter 6 is currently their third most popular game on live streaming. Thanks to community events like Twitch Plays Akuma, Capcom is keeping its fans excited for future content. Stream Hatchet will watch as publishers continue to promote their games through live-streaming events.
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In the modern gaming space, developers need to constantly update and promote their live service games to keep the player base active. This is where Twitch Drops come in.
For the uninitiated, Twitch Drops are in-game loot that viewers can obtain by tuning into their favorite streamers during special Twitch Drops campaigns. Initiatives like Twitch Drops drive traffic to streaming platforms and kick off a cascade of renewed interest, such as players talking about the latest changes, mentioning the game on socials, and jumping back onto servers. While community days, competitive streamer showdowns, and watch parties all have their own merits, Twitch Drops offer a tangible reward for the loyal player by handing out free gifts.
In this article, we’ll be covering the basics of Twitch Drops, how developers can use Twitch Drops campaigns to reignite their player base’s passion, and some key tips to remember when putting your Twitch Drops campaign into action.
Five Key Steps For Starting Your Own Twitch Drops Campaign:
One of the most powerful tools at your disposal is information: Access Stream Hatchet’s in-depth repository of streaming data to see chat mentions on Twitch and current trends among popular streamers.
Before launching into planning anything, you should decide if a Twitch Drops campaign is the right strategy for you. For some practical reasons, many games aren’t well-suited to Twitch Drops. For example, live service games are generally best for Twitch Drops as they have an array of customizable elements that can be used as rewards. Additionally, live service games experience waves of popularity, and Twitch Drops can help spur renewed interest in your game.
Thinking about benefits also means reviewing how well your Twitch Drops campaign has performed after the fact. Tracking the increase in viewership and how many Drops were claimed during your campaign shows engagement from viewers beyond the loyal fanbase that typically watches your game’s content.
What Works: Brawl Stars September Boost
The Twitch Drops campaign for Brawl Stars in 2023 was a phenomenal success, raising the hours watched from 29K the day before the campaign up to 210K when it launched. This means an increase of over 180K hours watched of content, no doubt converting some viewers back into players after having previously been inactive.
Once you’ve decided that a Twitch Drops campaign is the right path for you, you’ll need to craft interesting incentives to pull viewers on board. Twitch has a number of suggestions for maximizing the attractiveness of your rewards, but we’ll go over just a few here.
Exclusive Twitch Drops can act as a badge of honor for seasoned veterans of the game, showing their engagement with the community. For newcomers to the game, Twitch Drops offer an inexpensive and effortless way to obtain premium-looking skins and rewards that may otherwise seem like a far-off prospect.
Get creative with what rewards you offer – you can do so much more than mere aesthetic upgrades! While weapon skins, outfits, and in-game currency are nice go-to loot for a Twitch Drops campaign, you can also offer new emotes, titles, or emblems. If you’re really willing to put in the time, you could even offer whole new game content or, in specific cases, beta access keys for devoted early adopters.
Once you’ve got a nice range, try to scale up the quality of your rewards to keep viewers watching. Maybe some in-game currency and a skin can be used early on to hook viewers in, but more dedicated fans who watch for 10+ hours can receive a premium outfit or new content. Twitch allows developers to set the duration for a reward between 15 minutes and 4 hours, so play around with what intervals you think will keep viewers watching.
What Works: Hearthstone’s 10th Anniversary
Hearthstone was ideally suited for a Twitch Drops campaign, utilizing the strategy during their 10th anniversary in 2024 by rewarding viewers with items from their near-endless repository of content. Among the rewards up for grabs were card packs, Tavern Tickets, and unique cards from the then-new Whizbang’s Workshop expansion.
While many viewers will be drawn in by the promise of in-game rewards, they’ll want to watch streamers who are familiar with your game, whose content is entertaining, and who will engage with the other aspects of your campaign (as discussed later). Therefore the key to success is knowing which streamers are the right fit for your content.
As a first port-of-call, you can set your Drops campaign to a “category-wide” setting. In this mode, any streamer who labels their stream with your game can opt into your Twitch Drops campaigns. The advantage of this option is sheer numbers: You don’t have to search out every streamer playing your game, and smaller streamers with devoted followers will still be able to participate.
However, this blanket approach fails to meet the potential of a targeted Drops campaign. By partnering with specific streamers, you can collaborate with them to fine-tune your message and ask them to actively promote your Drops campaign. Reaching out ahead of time to coordinate your efforts also helps the streamer: It takes creative pressure off so they can focus on your game and the aspects you want highlighted most.
Stream Hatchet can help you analyze the audience demographics of popular streamers and look at their total viewership to deduce which streamers have the best cost-benefit ratio for your Twitch Drops campaign. Stream Hatchet will guide you towards the best streamers to partner with, ensuring your campaign reaches your target audience.
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Streamers who actively play your game regularly and get involved with the community are the best partnerships you can hope for: They’re not only well-known by fans, but they’ll advocate for updates to your game. Beyond this, you’ll want to reach streamers who have a similar core audience to yours. If you’re promoting an arena brawler, try to reach out to streamers who make content for similar games like Fall Guys or Rumble Club.
What Works: Lost Ark’s First Anniversary
When Lost Ark ran their first anniversary Twitch Drops campaign back in 2023, they made use of their pre-established Creator Program to tap into streamers, video hosts, wiki authors, writers, artists, fansite admins, guild leaders, and gaming mentors within their community. Not only did this boost participation in their Twitch Drops campaign, but it also got the news out to community leaders which trickled down into the vast majority of the fanbase as free word-of-mouth promotion.
While streamers are happy to promote your game, they’re less likely to enjoy a flood of new viewers spamming their chat with questions about how to claim Twitch Drops. Ahead of your Twitch Drops campaign, it’s your responsibility to clearly explain to fans what rewards they can receive and how to claim them. Twitch provides a fairly comprehensive guide, but we’ll look at some of the key points here.
Viewers are forced to jump through hoops to participate in Twitch Drops campaigns, such as connecting their specific game account to their Twitch account. Nothing frustrates players more than watching a stream for several hours, only to forget to claim their Drops before the campaign ends. To prevent this, make sure viewers are able to claim Drops for a set period after the Twitch Drops campaign is over.
When possible, viewers will tend to put in the minimum effort needed to earn Twitch Drops. If they can open a stream on one of their browser tabs and then ignore it while their time accumulates, they will. For this reason, Twitch allows you to make viewers check in at set time intervals to qualify for Drops. Checking-in means more active viewers, which means they’re actually watching new gameplay. But of course, this can also annoy viewers who want to casually engage with your content. This is a trade-off you’ll have to make.
With all of these decisions made, you’ll want to create your own tailored, simplified explainer post for players. With so much confusion surrounding the exact mechanics of Twitch Drops campaigns, this explainer post will allay any doubts they might have as to which streamers are participating and how to claim their rewards. This could be a simple blog post, or a video – whatever you think players will find more useful when your Twitch Drops campaign launches!
What Works: World of Tanks Explainer Video
World of Tanks made a fantastic video guide for their 2023 Twitch Drops campaign which pulled the viewer through the nuts-and-bolts of Twitch Drops campaign participation, from signing up to claiming rewards. This video required a bit more effort than a simple blog post, but the on-screen guide meant no viewer was left behind.
With all your prep work done, it’s time to launch the campaign! If it wasn’t apparent already, timing is everything for a Twitch Drops campaign. With so many active viewers, this is your time to make a big announcement. Try to line it up with a big occasion, such as a premiere, beta release, or a new trailer. You might even put together a Developer Diary stream to get players up to speed with the development process.
Your Twitch Drops campaign should be simple for viewers to find out about. Pick a clear, concise title that explains what the campaign is celebrating, what rewards are up-for-grabs, and details any associated promotional events. Once you’ve got the wording down, be consistent! Using the same terminology throughout your promotional material makes it easier for viewers to Google your campaign or find participating streamers on Twitch.
As your campaign progresses, you’ll want to track how many viewers are tuning in. Stream Hatchet can monitor the success of your campaign to find out which streamers are most popular and how much viewership your campaign is bringing in relative to similar title launches without Twitch Drops campaigns.
What Works: Diablo 4’s Release Week
Upon the release of Diablo 4, Blizzard launched a series of weekly Twitch Drops campaigns to build hype for their hotly-anticipated game among their community. Viewers were rewarded with in-game weapons and trophies to celebrate their status as early adopters of the new title. But more crucially, the Drops campaign gave Blizzard a chance to showcase new features (e.g. Nightmare Dungeons) and returning features (e.g. Hardcore Mode).
Twitch Drops campaigns are effective ways to give value back to your community, not just with in-game loot but with information about upcoming new developments in your game. Transparency is key, keeping your players informed about how the campaign works, how to get their rewards, and any other events they can jump in on. Use this opportunity to remind players about the social aspect of your game and they’ll keep coming back for more when you host future events!
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Q1 2024 has seen some major upheavals in streaming platform popularity. Last time, we looked at Steam becoming the go-to place for game developers to stream new releases and directly reach potential players.
But it was the emergence of a new platform that transformed the live streaming space in this last quarter: Chzzk. Built from the ground up by Naver to replace Twitch (reacting to its impending shutdown in Korea), Chzzk aimed to compete with traditional Korean-specific streaming platform AfreecaTV. With a full quarter now under its belt, it’s worth looking at how well Chzzk has made a name for itself in the live streaming arena.
The performance of various streaming platforms is covered in more detail in Stream Hatchet’s Q1 2024 Report, available as a free download here:
Since Chzzk’s inception, with the beta launching on the 19th of December 2023, the platform’s viewership has increased by leaps and bounds. In Chzzk’s second full week of tracked data (week beginning 25th of January), viewership grew by 79% when compared to its first week and rose to become the 6th most-watched streaming platform. With 13.1M hours watched, this placed Chzzk just below Steam by half a million hours watched. Much of this viewership was driven by early adopters to the site, with unique channels rising by over 200%.
Since this rapid growth, Chzzk has stabilized to nearly bring itself on par with AfreecaTV. Chzzk currently has 82K weekly average viewers, just 35K shy of AfreecaTV. This is a particularly impressive feat considering that AfreecaTV was founded back in 1996 and remains cherished by StarCraft fans as a mainstay of Korean live-streaming culture. Naturally, Chzzk also overtook Twitch ahead of its official shutdown on the 27th of February 2024. Hours watched on Chzzk now continue to grow at a steady pace of 2.6% per week.
As Twitch shut down, Korea-based creators and their viewers were forced to switch to other platforms. AfreecaTV retained their legacy StarCraft streamers, but Chzzk excelled in every other respect. Despite AfreecaTV’s presence in the space, Chzzk became the more popular option for ex-Twitch streamers to relocate to, perhaps due to its UI which feels more similar to Twitch.
Unexpectedly though, these ex-Twitch streamers also performed better after moving to Chzzk than on their original platform when looking at their average minute viewerships (AMA). Among the top 10 Chzzk creators, 6 saw an increase in their AMAs of over 100% after transferring off of Twitch. 한동숙, the well-known League of Legends and Lost Ark streamer who has been on Twitch since November 2016, experienced the second-highest increase of 324%, and landed himself as the #1 channel of Chzzk for Q1 with an AMA of over 14K. It’s worth noting that this comparison only compares Twitch and Chzzk viewership for Q1 2024, however.
Now that the initial burst of excitement has worn off, Chzzk will need to compete toe-to-toe with AfreecaTV to maintain its presence in Korea. Stream Hatchet will continue to track Chzzk’s performance as it branches out into covering esports events and aims to become the go-to platform for new releases in Korea.
To find out more about the latest trends in streaming, download Stream Hatchet’s free Q1 2024 report:
PirateSoftware, real name Jason Thor Hall, has made a name for himself as a reputable source of behind-the-scenes gaming information. With his background in infosec at Blizzard Entertainment for World of Warcraft, his work at Amazon Games Studio, and his experience as an indie games developer, fans are tuning in to hear PirateSoftware’s informed opinions on a range of data and software topics.
Following on from our profile on VTuber Dokibird, we’re looking at PirateSoftware’s rise to prominence on Twitch. The last six months have seen some phenomenal growth for PirateSoftware, despite first streaming way back in 2017. His inside-baseball analysis of Twitch’s algorithms has captured the interest of Twitch users, rocketing him to acclaim within the streaming industry.
By turning his full knowledge of analytics towards streaming, PirateSoftware has begun to dominate Twitch. PirateSoftware has pulled in 10M hours watched on Twitch, most of this stemming from the last six months. His success isn’t the result of a one-off popular event, but rather a consistent schedule. Fans have to stay tuned to hear his opinions on the constantly evolving meta of Twitch analytics, listening in for insights such as PirateSoftware’s explanation for Twitch’s monetization algorithm.
Although PirateSoftware does play games such as Helldivers 2 and Palworld on his channel, by far his most popular Twitch streams are game dev Q&A’s. Four of PirateSoftware’s top ten streams are game dev Q&A’s, accounting for 452K hours watched alone. Many of these streams cover the ongoing development of his story-driven RPG Heartbound, which was released in early access on Christmas Day 2018. This particular genre, exemplified by titles like Earthbound, Omori, and Undertale, is incredibly popular online, fostering passionate communities who become emotionally invested in the games’ characters and themes.
Much of PirateSoftware’s growth has come over the last six months, rising rapidly in November of 2023. From the start of October with an average minute viewership (AMA) of 367, PirateSoftware has since climbed to a peak AMA of 15.9K over the Easter weekend – a massive 4331% increase. Although six months is a short timeframe, his growth has been stable which implies a solid strategy for continued growth rather than clickbait-y attention grabbing.
On the 13th of December 2023, PirateSoftware’s popularity massively spiked with donations of roughly 2.2M Bits across the whole day. Roughly 1.8M of these Bits came solely from the day’s record-breaking Hype Train event in which PirateSoftware gained 7.3K new followers. PirateSoftware repeated the stunt on the 27th of December, pulling in an additional 2M Bits across the whole day. The swell of support for PirateSoftware was overwhelming, far exceeding what he ever expected.
Just this last weekend, over Easter, PirateSoftware crushed his own record by creating an even more incredible Hype Train. Across the 1st of April, PirateSoftware pulled in 8.6M Bits, 8.2M of which came from his Hype Train event – an absolutely absurd show of support that launched PirateSoftware to the highest daily Bits generated of all-time. It’s unbelievable to think all of this came off the back of an April Fool’s stream in which PirateSoftware created fake patch notes for Heartbound in a banana costume.
Outside of Twitch, PirateSoftware also regularly uploads to his YouTube channel of the same name, mainly posting longplays of video games and supporting behind-the-scenes content from Heartbound. Looking at socials data from Sideqik reveals that his YouTube channel is actively engaged with, rather than just being a repository of historical content. PirateSoftware’s YouTube videos garner an average of 59K likes and 874 comments, with his total viewership on the platform amounting to 1.6M subscribers.
Beyond fan reception, PirateSoftware’s skill has been commended with a number of awards. As an infosec professional, PirateSoftware has competed in teams to win three Black Badges at DEF CON, an annual hacker convention in Las Vegas. Off the back of his recent streaming success, PirateSoftware was also named Best Software and Game Developer Streamer at the Streamer Awards 2024.
With such a diverse array of talents and a constantly evolving streaming landscape to explore, PirateSoftware is sure to remain in the discussion for years to come. When Heartbound releases (date as yet unannounced), PirateSoftware is sure to put on a spectacular display to promote the game – possibly even setting new records on Twitch.
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Note: This article was updated on 21/3/2024 and originally published on 12/10/2022
Energy drinks continue to pop up in Twitch chat discourse as users try to find the product that will keep them invigorated throughout long gameplay sessions. Since we last covered energy drinks on Twitch in September of 2022, mentions of these products have continued to rise thanks in large part to sponsored creators.
Red Bull continues to lead the way for energy drinks in streaming, with 189K unique mentions on Twitch for February. This is a significant growth of 41K mentions since September of 2022, reflecting Red Bull’s growing involvement in games and esports content. Just this month it hosted another edition of their Red Bull Kumite tournament, this time bringing together the top Street Fighter 6 players for a competition in New York. Red Bull also sponsors individual players, such as Rocket League player nolystic.
Monster Energy is closing the gap between themselves and Red Bull, now sitting at 156K chat mentions. Monster has been fully committed specifically to esports, throwing itself behind esports teams like Team Liquid and shouting out the achievements of players like StarCraft II ESL Masters 2023 finalist Clem. Monster has even featured its branding in popular games, like the recently released Monster skin for Call of Duty: Warzone.
HOLY Energy was a new entrant into the energy drinks space back in 2022, but since then it has undergone a rebranding and expansion into new markets. HOLY Energy can now be found in UK shops with a clean aesthetic inspired by 90’s culture. To back up this expansion, HOLY Energy sponsored UK-based esports organization Reason Gaming in 2024. This commercial success hasn’t translated into streaming awareness however, with HOLY Energy only generating 13K chat mentions on Twitch. However, HOLY Energy opened the way for a variety of clean alternatives to traditional energy drinks to enter the streaming space.
One such clean alternative is Gamer Supps: A supplement brand targeted exclusively at the online community with its “gamer speak” derived product names and edgy anime styling. Notably, Gamer Supps makes more than just energy drinks: It’s really more like a health food company. Its “AFK” range provides magnesium-boosted sleep support, and its “sus snacks” are Gamer Supps’ take on protein bars.
Although the company has been around since 2016, its newfound popularity may largely be due to popular Twitch streamer JSchlatt’s acquisition of Gamer Supps back in 2022. Gamer Supps has also found a new audience by sponsoring famous Vtubers like Fream and Rainhoe, keying into the fans most likely to respond to their anime aesthetic. This renewed push has seen Twitch chat mentions for Gamer Supps rise to 19.6K in February.
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Türkiye has a history of cracking down on sites it deems harmful to its people, having banned over 137K sites in 2022 alone. Gambling in particular has been a constant concern, with the Turkish Information and Communications Technology Authority (BTK) closely monitoring its effect on Turkish youth. Twitch and Kick are now streaming sites are under the BTK’s lens, with recent bans enforced on Twitch and Kick.
Turkish officials claimed that “Kick’s entry into Türkiye was to attract Turkish youth into roulette”, as reported by Ibrahim Haskoloğlu. As such, Kick was banned on the 22nd of February, with a ban for Twitch following two days later. Kick quickly responded however, with Kick’s partner manager in Türkiye, Trq, explaining that Kick was “banning gambling-related publications to users” in the region. As such, Kick was unblocked after just two days on the 26th of February, while Twitch was down for 5 days and came back up on the 29th of February.
With this back-and-forth over bans in Türkiye, the streaming landscape has changed. Kick has gained considerable ground on Twitch by eschewing its dependence on gambling streams. But analysis shows Kick was already overtaking the Turkish streaming space even prior to these bans. So which platform came out better from the controversy?
Unsurprisingly, the bans on Twitch and Kick created a void in viewership for their duration. Kick dropped down to an average minute viewership (AMA) of just 99 in Türkiye in the middle of its ban on the 25th of February, while Twitch dropped to an AMA of 2.9K on the 28th just before its ban was lifted. The platforms never hit zero despite the ban, most likely due to the use of VPNs and Turkish-speaking users outside of Türkiye still logging on to the platforms.
After the bans were lifted, both platforms rebounded as users flocked back. Kick, however, rebounded far more successfully than Twitch, exceeding its pre-ban AMA peak of 13K with a new peak of nearly 21K on the 28th of February. That’s a growth of roughly 61% over the course of the ban. Looking at the same metrics for Twitch, the more mature platform saw a drop in AMA from 50K to 30K – a 40% decrease.
When regulatory action hits an industry, it creates a hotbed for change. The same holds here, with the streaming vacuum in Türkiye prompting many streamers to switch to Kick while Twitch was still down. Unique channels on Kick rose from 1.7K in the week preceding the ban to 2.5K following the ban, while Twitch’s unique channels dropped from 8.1K to 6.5K following its ban. This is just the most recent downturn in regional Twitch viewership, following Twitch’s shutdown in Korea on the 27th of February.
It’s worth noting that even prior to the bans, Kick was gaining momentum in Türkiye. In the first week of 2024, hours watched on the platform sat at just 24K. But in the week prior to the bans, hours watched had risen to 284K – a massive 1000% rise. It seems that Kick was intent on establishing their presence in the region, weathering the storm through a two-day ban to stay on track.
The top Turkish-speaking streamers drove this shift from Twitch to Kick, generating more hours watched on Kick following the bans. Eray, a Turkish streamer known for his VALORANT gameplay, virtually disappeared from Twitch, with his hours watched dropping from 607K to 97K from January to February. Hype, meanwhile, practically fully transitioned from Twitch to Kick, with his hours watched on Twitch dropping 86% while his hours watched on Kick remained stable with a growth of 8%.
Overall, between the top Turkish streamers, Kick managed to hold their ground with a nearly net 0% loss of hours watched due to the ban. Kick’s quick response to the bans may have saved them from losing the trust of users, keeping them on the platform over the 2 day ban.
As mentioned earlier, part of the reason Kick’s ban was lifted before Twitch was supposedly due to Kick taking action to limit the spread of gambling content on their platform in Türkiye. This certainly seems backed by the relative amount of gambling being viewed on each platform, with Kick’s gambling content contributing only 3.7% of the platform’s total hours watched in Türkiye for February. Twitch’s gambling content, meanwhile, amounts to 18.7% of their total hours watched – nearly one-fifth of total viewership.
This may come as a surprise considering the backlash Twitch has faced over gambling content in the past. In 2022, Twitch banned certain gambling streams following threats of a strike from creators like Pokimane and Mizkif. This paved the way for Kick’s founding in October of 2022, backed by parent site Stake.com which hoped to find an alternative route for gambling streaming. As a result, Kick has been saddled with the assumption that it is primarily motivated by gambling content.
In 2024, Kick is proving that’s clearly not the case, willing to cut gambling content to prove itself a safe space for users. Kick’s relatively small reliance on gambling content in Türkiye is no coincidence. Up until December of 2023, gambling contributed to 33.3% of Kick’s total hours watched in Türkiye, but Kick’s response to government concerns dropped it down ten-fold to the aforementioned 3.7% for February.
In an August 2023 interview with streamer Big E, Kick’s Head of Product Paul Chianese asserted that “Kick was never founded because we wanted people to go directly to Stake”, reasserting that he doesn’t see Kick as a platform designed for gambling streaming. Their shift away from gambling content in Türkiye supports this ethos. Twitch, on the other hand, has not put their money where their mouth is. Gambling has consistently contributed to roughly 18% of Twitch’s viewership in Türkiye even in the wake of the ban, showing no signs of concession to the BTK’s concerns.
Türkiye has taken a hard-line approach to online censorship, even banning its most popular social media site Ekşi Sözlük in 2023. It remains to be seen if streamers can prove to the BTK that their sites are safe for users, or if they will need to take further measures to retain access in Türkiye. Stream Hatchet will be watching as the situation evolves, tracking gambling streaming on both Twitch and Kick.
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Significant shifts in South Korea as Twitch, the Amazon-owned live-streaming platform, prepares to shutdown its services by February 2024.
This decision, influenced by prohibitively high network costs and regulatory challenges, brings into focus the impact on Korean streamers and the emergent opportunities for local streaming platforms.
In the first six weeks after the announcement, changes in viewer and creator behaviour can already be seen across Twitch and AfreecaTV, as well as Kick and YouTube.
Declining AMA and unique channels in Twitch suggests that audiences and streamers are looking for alternatives once the shutdown happens in South Korea.
AfreecaTV seems to be the top choice so far, since it is the go-to platform for Korean-speaking audiences. Since the number of unique channels streaming on the platform is growing, streamers seem to be testing the waters for alternatives already before the shutdown.
Korean creators also seem to be testing Kick and YouTube as other alternatives to Twitch in the region, based on increases in their AMA and number of unique channels.
Twitch’s withdrawal has created opportunities for other platforms in the South Korean streaming industry. The competition is particularly intense between AfreecaTV and Naver’s new streaming service, Chzzk. Both platforms are looking to attract Twitch’s former user base and create solid audiences that will allow them to compete globally. Some strategies include AfreecaTV full on rebranding to SOOP and Naver’s Chzzk showcasing higher video quality and integrated services.
Twitch’s departure from the South Korean market signals a pivotal change, creating opportunities for local platforms and reshaping the streaming landscape. The rise of platforms like Kick and the steady growth of AfreecaTV, coupled with strategic moves by Naver’s Chzzk and the supportive role of NPE, highlight the dynamic nature of the Korean streaming market. Stakeholders and content creators must adapt to these changes to leverage new opportunities and sustain their presence in this evolving digital space.
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The Pokémon Twitch Cup is over, and the numbers are in, showcasing the dedicated community this event has created. With a staggering 13.8M hours watched, this event wasn’t just a tournament; it was a phenomenon. Peak viewers reached 234K, with an average steady viewership of 61K, indicating a sustained interest throughout the event.
The Pokémon Twitch Cup is one of the most awaited events in the Spanish community. Around 40 Spanish Twitch creators come together in a world full of adventures while they collect their Pokémon roster for the tournament phase. Read more about it:
Taking advantage of our new YouTube VODs analytics tool, videos related to the Pokémon Twitch Cup amassed a remarkable 6.7M views at the time of publication. The community will enjoy reliving the highlights of the Cup, looking forward to the next edition and creating hype.
Among all the Spanish creators participating, one stood out from the crowd. For the second time in a row, beloved Illojuan captured the attention of the Spanish Twitch community, commanding an impressive average viewership of 70K during the entire event. This achievement not only speaks volumes about Illojuan’s engaging content but also underscores the creator’s influential role in the event’s success.
The Pokémon Twitch Cup’s success story is more than just a collection of statistics; it reveals the potential communities such as the Spanish one can have on live streaming. Furthermore, This event has set a new bar within the industry, illustrating the expansive reach creators and platforms possess when they broadcast content that resonates with a passionate audience.
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Some interesting trends have appeared this November on Twitch, with creators gaining followers on new accounts across different platforms, showcasing the impact of the new policy changes around simulcasting across platforms.
VEGETTA777, a long-time YouTube giant, rose to the top of Twitch’s new followers list with 581K new followers. His move to simulcast on Twitch marked a significant shift, bringing his substantial YouTube subscriber base to the platform. This strategic cross-platform presence underscores the growing trend of leveraging simulcasting to maximize audience reach.
Mongraal clinched the second spot with 573K new followers, riding the wave of Fortnite OG. His involvement in creator-hosted Fortnite tournaments and the backing from Epic Games for his streams played a crucial role in his follower growth. This reflects how game-specific events and sponsorships can boost a streamer’s popularity.
CreamTheRabbit, an emerging Vtuber, made a significant leap in followers through engaging content centered around CS2 and Teamfight Tactics. By reaching 549K new followers, the VTuber rose to the 3rd spot, likely due a mixture between CS2 normal and modded content. In addition, Teamfight Tactics released a new set of characters and synergies at the end of November, providing fresh content.
The list also highlights the effect of simulcasting, with creators like Willyrex expanding their reach by broadcasting simultaneously on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. Furthermore, This approach has proven effective in drawing audiences from different platforms, expanding the streamers’ visibility.
In contrast, DjMaRiiO’s strategy centered on a full transition to Twitch, except for the Kingdoms Cup finale. His focused approach demonstrates the potential of dedicated streaming on a single platform to build a strong, engaged community.
November’s top 10 Twitch creators reflect a dynamic live streaming landscape, where strategies like simulcasting and platform crossovers are reshaping content creation.
These trends not only provide new opportunities for audience growth but also highlight the importance of adapting to the changing preferences of the live streaming community.
As live streaming platforms continue to evolve, creators leveraging these strategies are likely to stay ahead in the race for viewership and engagement
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In the dynamic realm of Twitch, the Pokémon Twitch Cup 3 has emerged as a standout event, especially within the Spanish community. Led by seasoned Pokémon aficionado BarbeQ and pro player Sekiam, this tournament has not only captivated viewers but also set new benchmarks in terms of engagement and community involvement.
At its core, the event is a celebration of the Pokémon universe, bringing together 42 streamers, most of whom are mentored by a competitive Pokémon trainer. This unique format not only adds an educational layer to the event but also amplifies the competitive spirit, making it more than just a gaming tournament—it’s a learning experience and a showcase of strategic gameplay.
The third installment of the Pokémon Twitch Cup has already outperformed 2022’s event viewership. This year, the Pokémon Twitch Cup 3 generated 1.7M hours watched on day one, up almost 30% from last year’s 1.3M. Moreover, peak viewers increased by 25%, as well as average viewers by 33%
This surge in viewership is attributed to the event’s hype created by the 2nd edition, giving the viewers amazing moments of their favorite creators. In addition, the Spanish creator community’s continued robust engagement with Pokemon content also helped to boost the event to the next level.
What sets the Pokémon Twitch Cup apart is its emphasis on community and collaboration. The Spanish streaming community’s unity is vividly displayed as creators come together, fostering a sense of camaraderie and collective passion for Pokémon. This event exemplifies the potential of creator-led initiatives in bringing together diverse talents and personalities for a shared cause.
The Pokémon Twitch Cup 3 is set to become a success greater than the previous version and compared to other Pokémon events that happened during 2022 and 2023 as well. By looking at only the 1st day of Pokémon events for the past two years, Pokémon Twitch Cup has the highest number of hours watched of the franchises during this time period.
Adding to the excitement, popular streamers Illojuan and Knekro have rejoined forces for this edition, with Illojuan’s channel skyrocketing to the top based on hours watched at 662K, and Knekro following closely at the third spot with 156K. Their participation underlines the event’s ability to draw in high-profile creators, further boosting its visibility and appeal.
Other top creators such as Rubius and Ibai appear in the top with 238K hours watched and 143K respectively.
The official sponsor, GLS Spain, a logistics company, has creatively integrated its presence into the event with in-game banners. This sponsorship is a strategic move, aligning the brand with a highly engaged, digital-savvy audience and showcasing how brands can seamlessly blend into the gaming world.
Here are some examples of activations within the game:
The Pokémon Twitch Cup 3 is more than just a tournament; it’s a vibrant illustration of the power of creator-led events in the live streaming industry. It highlights how such initiatives can foster community spirit, boost viewer engagement, and open new avenues for brand integrations.
As the tournament progresses, it continues to blaze a trail for how games like Pokémon can unite creators and audiences in a shared experience.
In essence, the Pokémon Twitch Cup 3 is not only a significant event in the Twitch calendar but also a beacon of community-driven content, setting a standard for future creator-led events in the gaming and esports landscape.
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October proved to be an exciting month for Twitch, with certain creators making significant strides in gaining new followers. The month saw varying content from just chatting sessions to professional gameplay, to real life simulations, demonstrating the diversity regarding content Twitch can offer.
Topping the list is xCry, who experienced an unexpected boost in new followers, amassing an astounding 822K in October alone. This creator primarily engaged audiences with ‘Just Chatting’ streams, offering reactions to the latest internet news, events, and trends. xCry’s charismatic presence and timely content curation undoubtedly played a crucial role in attracting such a vast new audience.
KaiCenat took the second spot with a commendable 510K new followers. One event that undeniably contributed to KaiCenat’s October success was his innovative Jail simulation stream. Beginning in the last week of October, KaiCenat put himself in a fake jail to simulate the life of a prisoner for 7 days, broadcasting the entire session. Remarkably, even at the time of this article’s release, KaiCenat remains live, continuously engaging his ever-growing audience with this unique content.
In third place, showcasing the exciting competitive gaming scene, is Jynxzi. His streams focused on the intense and strategic gameplay of Rainbow Six Siege. By not only streaming but also participating in tournaments, Jynxzi garnered a considerable following. His expertise and involvement in the game’s competitive scene resonated with fans, helping him secure 226K new followers in October.
These creators, with their distinctive content offerings, exemplify the varied interests of the Twitch community. From casual chats and unique simulations to high-stakes gaming, October’s top creators catered to a wide range of audience preferences. As the platform continues to evolve, it will be intriguing to see which creators rise to prominence and what innovative content they bring to the fore.
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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.
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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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.
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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Over Easter Weekend the Super Mario Bros. Movie was able to break box office records by becoming the highest-grossing domestic debut in 2023 with $106.1 million. The movie also surpassed Frozen II as the best global launch for an animated movie of all time according to the Hollywood Reporter
Thanks to the strong ties between live streaming and gaming, many viewers went to Twitch chat to talk about the game with their favorite streamers. Chat mentions referencing key words from the Mario movie increased by 32% after the release of the movie.
Mentions of popular Mario franchise characters were hovering around 45K per day in Twitch chat in the weeks leading up to the movie release. However, on launch day they spiked to 77K and the day after the release they were up to over 83K mentions, an increase of 86% from the weeks before the release. They continue to stay at almost double the normal levels with 80K mentions on the 11th.
Mentions of the actors in Twitch chat also skyrocketed around the Super Mario Bros Movie release. The main voice actors included Chris Pratt who played Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy who voice Princess Peach, Jack Black as Bowser, Charlie Day as Luigi, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Seth Rogan voicing Donkey Kong. The mentions of these actors on Twitch jumped 344% to 3700 mentions on the day after the premiere as compared to the several weeks beforehand.
Looking to Twitch chat is a great way to understand the discourse around releases like the Mario movie, which can help advertisers figure out the best places to put their marketing dollars. Analyzing Twitch chat the day after a trailer release or a big media moment can help advertisers understand what type of consumer is most interested in the product they’re selling. Further working with that type of audience can help provide the best ROI for marketing plans and help marketers succeed in the live streaming space.
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While Twitch is often thought of as a gaming-centric live streaming platform, the amount of non-gaming content is on the rise. As reported in our 2022 Live Streaming Trends Report, non-gaming content streamed on Twitch was up almost 6% in 2022, while gaming-specific content was down 8%.
In fact, half of the top 10 peak moments in live streaming in 2022 across major platforms were non-gaming, and 4 were sports-specific; 2 soccer events (including the FIFA World Cup), 1 boxing match, and 1 racing event made the top charts.
While no channels on Twitch were licensed to live stream this year’s NFL Super Bowl, the platform was still host to many conversations about what viewers were watching on cable.
Super Bowl LVII was held this year in Arizona featuring the two best teams in football: the AFC’s Kansas City Chiefs versus the NFC’s Philadelphia Eagles. Kansas City ultimately came out victorious with a score of 38-35. The high-scoring affair sent Twitch chat into a frenzy, with viewers across the platform discussing the event.
From February 12th to 13th the Chiefs and Eagles generated over 138K mentions across Twitch. Many of these mentions came from popular channels like AMP’s KaiCenat and OTK’s EsfandTV who hosted watch parties during the event. Many chatters voiced their frustrations towards the Eagles who were the favorites to win the Championship. On the other end of the spectrum, mentions of Patrick Mahomes becoming a GOAT came flooding in, especially in KaiCenat’s Twitch chat.
This year’s Super Bowl halftime performance headliner was Rihanna. Rihanna’s halftime performance generated 22.4K mentions from Feb 12-13th making up 25% of all relevant mentions between her and the NFL.
Both Rihanna and the NFL saw massive growth in chat activity post Super Bowl LVII. Before Super Bowl Sunday, the NFL and overall football mentions averaged about 33K per day. However, on the day of and the day following the event, the number of NFL-related chat mentions doubled to an average of 67K per day. Rihanna saw an even greater boost of an average of 3K mentions per day to 22K mentions during and after the Super Bowl, a whopping 590% increase.
As creators have begun to diversify their content on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Live, there are now more opportunities than ever for non-gaming companies to take advantage of that audience.
To learn more about how you can start activating in the live streaming space and better understand your potential audience, schedule some time with a customer success representative.
Nintendo fans were treated to the latest “Nintendo Direct” last week, a biannual announcement from the publisher premiering upcoming video game releases, updates, and DLC drops.
The 45-minute live stream generated 1.6M hours watched and peaked at just over 2M viewers across all platforms and channels. 32% of the Nintendo Direct viewership was user-generated content while ⅔ of the hours watched came from Nintendo channels across YouTube and Twitch.
To understand an audience’s feedback on a game, event, sponsorship, and more, it can be really helpful to analyze the live streaming chat and pull out key insights. Stream Hatchet has taken a look at Twitch chat during the Nintendo Direct live stream to understand what games from February’s showcase viewers were most excited about.
Retro games and remasters were the highlight of this February showcase. “Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe” and “Metroid Prime” remasters were announced and during the broadcast “kirby” and “metroid” were mentioned 104 and 127 times, respectively.
Pikmen 4’s release date was finally announced for July 21st of this year. The Pikmen franchise generated the 3rd most mentions during the Nintendo Direct at 147.
Expansions were also announced for Splatoon 3 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Twitch chat mentioned “splatoon” 130 times, and “mario” 208 times making the Mario franchise the second most mentioned during the Showcase.
The game that Nintendo fans are anticipating the most is the latest installment of The Legend of Zelda franchise, Tears of the Kingdom. During the Twitch broadcast alone, “Zelda” had over 400 mentions during the broadcast, the most of any game announced. The game was the last to be announced, and “Zelda” mentions skyrocketed during the last five minutes of the broadcast.
In contrast, mentions of the “residentsleeper” emoticon plummeted during the last five minutes of the broadcast. The “residentsleeper” emote is one that portrays boredom and has an overall negative connotation. As mentions of the newest Zelda installment increased, the “residentsleeper” emote was used less frequently.
It is also interesting to note that mentions of the “residentsleeper” emote also declined during the 30-35 minute mark of the broadcast. During this time, it was announced that Gameboy Advance games were coming to the Nintendo Switch Online bundle. The Metroid Prime remaster was also featured during this section, indicating a positive sentiment towards those two announcements.
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Hogwarts Legacy has broken the record for the highest peak concurrent viewership for a single-player game on Twitch with 1.3 million viewers watching on Tuesday.
This number beats the previous record set by Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020 with 1.14M concurrent viewers. Hogwarts also beat out Elden Ring which hit a peak viewership on Twitch with just over 900K viewers last year.
Resident Evil: Village and Dying Light 2: Stay Human currently sit in 4th and 5th place for peak viewership on Twitch with 657K and 640K viewers, respectively.
Hogwarts Legacy hasn’t even been released to the general public and has already become one of the most popular single-player games in live streaming ever through the influencer marketing and drops programs Warner Brothers has set up on Twitch.
The game generated 13.7M hours watched in its first day on live streaming, and had an average minute audience of 540K.
xQc was the live streaming creator that had the highest viewership on the first day, generating 1.3 million hours watched on his channel. He also saw the highest single-channel peak viewership at 126K concurrent viewers.
Illojuan was the second most-watched creator with just under half a million hours watched. Fextralife came in at 362K hours watched, zachrawrr (Asmongold’s second channel) had 322K hours watched, and KaiCenat generated 289K hours watched, streaming the game during his ongoing subathon.
The hype for Hogwarts Legacy has been around since the game was first revealed in 2020, leaving players wondering when they would finally be able to get their hands on it. The game officially releases to the general public on new-generation consoles on Friday the 10th. This weekend’s live streaming numbers might even beat out the game’s first 24 hours on Twitch, and it could possibly break its own record again.
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The Last of Us premiered on HBO January 15th to the delight of fans who have been eagerly waiting for the newest video game tv show adaptation. The show was the network’s second-biggest release in ten years since House of the Dragon with 4.7 million viewers on Sunday night.
While video game adaptations often make fans nervous, The Last of Us seems to have lived up to the hype. The season has, so far, a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 97% Audience Score, making it not only one of the top video game adaptations, but one of the top tv shows out right now.
The show’s creation is one of many video game adaptations over the years; from Arcane to The Witcher, Resident Evil to The Cuphead Show, gaming and other media often go hand in hand. Video games inform the creation of new movies and tv shows, games are created with the characters from popular culture, and so on. Fans love to interact with their favorite media in multiple ways, and creating shows and movies based on video games is usually a great way to keep a franchise alive.
One way to see the continuation of the hype around the new The Last of Us series is to look at live streaming. The release of the premiere boosted interest in the game on Twitch in the days following. On the day of the HBO premiere and the 3 days after, live streaming viewership of any TLOU game on the platform increased 112% from an average of 59K to 126K hours watched per day. Viewership peaked on Wednesday this week with 43K viewers and 222K hours watched.
Fans were also chatting more frequently about the game and the show. We analyzed chat keywords from the franchise, and mentions were up 60% on the day of the premiere and 3 days after to an average of 67K mentions per day.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey saw the greatest increase in mentions after the release of the show on Twitch, 417% and 403%, respectively. “The Last of Us” and “TLOU” saw the next greatest increases with 249% and 117%, respectively.
While the viewership numbers for The Last of Us franchise aren’t near peak streaming numbers back when Part II was released in 2020, January is on track to be one of the biggest months in streaming for the franchise in the last 1.5 years, dwarfed only by the release of Part 1 (re-release of the original) in September of 2022.
In the 8 days surrounding the release of the new HBO show, from January 11-18th, The Last of Us Part 1 saw a total of 526.5K hours watched across major live streaming platforms and a peak of 35.6K concurrent viewers. The top 5 channels broadcasting the game were Carreraaa with 121.5K hours watched, Rubius with 97.9K, AriGamePlays with 35.7K, Ultia with 19.9K, and AnthonyCaliber with 18.9K. Rubius had the highest peak viewership with 32.8K across that timeframe.
While the highest viewership for all of The Last of Us games was on Twitch, YouTube did see a boost in hours watched on Tuesday the 17th with 25K hours watched. On average for the past few months, the franchise usually saw only 2K hours watched per day.
The Last of Us has 8 more episodes which will be released every Sunday for the next 8 weeks. It will be interesting to see if the rest of the series lives up to the promising start of the first one, and to see how much more of an impact the series will have on live streaming viewership and conversation.
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Twitch and live streaming platforms have always been a place where people have discussed finance-related topics, especially crypto currencies. In the last few months, The Crypto market has continued to experience turbulence, prompting discussions on Twitch. In addition, the IRS is invoking changes that will affect services like Venmo, PayPal, and Cash App in the United States.
Twitch can be a great place to understand the general consensus and divide over trending topics in the younger generation. Twitch viewers are generally 18-34 years old, and are fans of gaming, tech, and other similar niches. Understanding your brand’s popularity and sentiment among this demographic is powerful in developing a marketing strategy.
The most chatted about Finance Brand was PayPal which clocked in at 500K chat mentions in December. The Digital Finance service provides an online payment system that is accessible in many countries across the world. This service allows you to transfer money digitally, quickly, and safely online.
Cash App was the second most popular brand for December generating 182K chat mentions. Cash App is a mobile focused payment service that operates in the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2021 Cash App was reported to have 70 million active users becoming one of the most popular financial services.
PayPal and Cash App have become a hot topic of discussion. This is due to the IRS’s changes that will require services like PayPal and Cash App to file taxes on transactions over $600. In December the IRS announced that these changes won’t be put in place until 2023. So those who would be affected can rely on the previous benchmark before having to file a 1099-K tax form.
Ethereum generated 76K chat mentions becoming the third most talked about finance brand, and the most talked about cryptocurrency on Twitch. Ethereum is a digital currency that is run on an open-source blockchain. Among all crypto coins, Ethereum and Bitcoin are considered to be the market leaders.
Binance was the fifth most talked about finance company generating 23K chat mentions in December. Binance is a crypto currency exchange platform similar to Coinbase where you can trade crypto currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Crypto currencies have become a polarizing topic on platforms like Twitch. While some still have hope that the industry will be able to recover. Some consumers and influencers have expressed how the industry needs to become more regulated before they can buy in.
Visa was the fourth most mentioned Finance Brand on Twitch in December clocking in 25K chat mentions. The multinational corporation helps businesses and consumers transfer funds throughout the world using Visa credit cards, debit cards, and prepaid cards. In the United States Visa is the most widely used service for banks issuing credit and debit cards making the company one of the most valuable companies in the world.
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The “I’m Only Sleeping” category on Twitch has seen an incredible burst in viewership in the last two years. In 2020, the category only had 123K hours watched. That number has grown almost 50,000% to 62M in 2022.
Twitch streamers have used the I’m Only Sleeping category as the main category for broadcasts of streamers actually sleeping for the last few years. However, this wasn’t originally the intended purpose of the category. I’m Only Sleeping is actually a point-and-click adventure game that was created by Einoo in 2005.
Although this game does have its own category on Twitch, most streamers who stream under this category don’t play the intended game. So what’s responsible for the increased viewership and popularity?
In March of 2021, Ludwig Ahgren, known as Ludwig, streamed for 31 days in what’s known as a “subathon.” The main goal of a subathon is to gain subscribers to one’s live streaming channel, but Ludwig also used the event to raise money for charity. While subathons have existed before Ludwig, his was record-breaking; in 31 days he gained over 260K subscriptions and millions of followers, breaking Ninja’s previous record.
Ludwig’s subathon helped popularize the growth strategy, and more and more streamers started doing similar events to gain followers and subscribers. These streams, which often go on for days or weeks at a time, record the streamer’s activities all 24 hours of the day, including sleeping. While it’s unclear who first started using the “I’m Only Sleeping” game category during their sleeping streams, the category soon became the de facto selection.
While sleeping on Twitch has seen some controversial opinions, engagement and donations have kept streamers continuing the practice. In 2022 the category grew 189% from 22M hours watched in 2021 to 62M. Viewers want to support the streamers they like and will watch their streams, even if they’re asleep. Sometimes streamers even set up alerts for donations and subscriptions that make loud noises or play videos to disturb their sleep, getting fans to donate even more.
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While Twitch has become categorized as a gaming focused platform, there are many other creatives who find value in being able to live stream their work and their processes to their community. Some streamers have used Twitch as an outlet to showcase creations like fashion, cosplay, or art. Here are the top 5 artists under the Art category of Twitch for December 2022.
The most watched channel in December was the BobRoss channel. This channel features past broadcasts of the late Robert Norman “Bob” Ross, who televised his art lessons on PBS. The Bob Ross channel was able to generate 458K hours watched in December which accounts for over half of the top 5’s watchtime last month.
December’s runner-up was Italian V-Tuber DyaRikku. DyaRikku is a freelance artist/illustrator as well as a 2-D modeler. While Dya does primarily stream art content, she also plays a variety of games like Ori And The Blind Forest, Beat Saber, and Bendy & the Ink Machine. All together Dya was able to generate a total of 486K hours watched with 146K of those hours being in the Art Category.
The third most watched channel in the Art category was JuanSGuarnizo. Juan is a Spanish speaking influencer who is not only part of the KOI team founded by popular streamer Ibai, he holds a massive following with 6M YouTube subscribers and 9.6M Twitch followers. Although Juan streamed under the Art Category once in December, his massive audience was able to propel him to #3 on our leaderboard with 121K hours watched.
갱생레바 is a Korean speaking streamer who sketches on stream for his viewers whenever he’s not playing Dungeon Fighter Online. For December, 갱생레바 was able to generate 85K hours watched for his art streams, and 72K hours watched for Dungeon Fighter Online.
The Yogscast channel rounds out the top 5 for December with 74K hours watched under the Art category. In December Yogscast hosted their JingleJam 2022 which is a multi-day charity event where viewers are able to donate to support several charities. In 2022 the channel raised £3.4M.
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While Twitch has become categorized as a gaming focused platform, there are many other creatives who find value in being able to live stream their work and their processes to their community. Some streamers have used Twitch as an outlet to showcase creations like fashion, cosplay, or art. Here are the top 5 artists under the Art category of Twitch for December 2022.
The most watched channel in December was the BobRoss channel. This channel features past broadcasts of the late Robert Norman “Bob” Ross, who televised his art lessons on PBS. The Bob Ross channel was able to generate 458K hours watched in December which accounts for over half of the top 5’s watchtime last month.
December’s runner-up was Italian V-Tuber DyaRikku. DyaRikku is a freelance artist/illustrator as well as a 2-D modeler. While Dya does primarily stream art content, she also plays a variety of games like Ori And The Blind Forest, Beat Saber, and Bendy & the Ink Machine. All together Dya was able to generate a total of 486K hours watched with 146K of those hours being in the Art Category.
The third most watched channel in the Art category was JuanSGuarnizo. Juan is a Spanish speaking influencer who is not only part of the KOI team founded by popular streamer Ibai, he holds a massive following with 6M YouTube subscribers and 9.6M Twitch followers. Although Juan streamed under the Art Category once in December, his massive audience was able to propel him to #3 on our leaderboard with 121K hours watched.
갱생레바 is a Korean speaking streamer who sketches on stream for his viewers whenever he’s not playing Dungeon Fighter Online. For December, 갱생레바 was able to generate 85K hours watched for his art streams, and 72K hours watched for Dungeon Fighter Online.
The Yogscast channel rounds out the top 5 for December with 74K hours watched under the Art category. In December Yogscast hosted their JingleJam 2022 which is a multi-day charity event where viewers are able to donate to support several charities. In 2022 the channel raised £3.4M.
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Tesla was the most mentioned car brand on Twitch in November. Tesla was able to generate 207K Twitch chat mentions last month which was a 150% increase compared to October’s 83K chat mentions. This rise in Tesla mentions could have something to do with Tesla’s recall that was announced on November 21st which caused a spike of 14K messages. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter also had a major impact. With Twitter and live streaming intertwined, the major changes coming to the platform has had a trickle effect into Tesla’s brand awareness on Twitch.
Ferrari has maintained their position as the second most mentioned car brand for a second month in a row. Ferrari chat mentions once again decreased from 81K Mentions in October to 76K mentions in November marking their fourth continuous month of declining mentions. According to Forbes, consumers are recommending car buyers to choose mainstream auto brands over their luxury counterparts.
BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Honda round out the top 5 generating 70K, 52K, and 39K mentions respectively. These three brands have made the shift into marketing in esports and gaming with activations in multiple different games like Rocket League, to League of Legends to Fortnite.
In November, Honda Dream Lab hosted an NBA 2K23 Tournament featuring players from HBCUs. Honda has also become the official automaker for Esports Organization Team Liquid. Honda now owns Team Liquids naming sponsorship rights to the League of Legends team.
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Amazon Prime Video has purchased the rights to stream this year’s Thursday Night Football on Prime Video. Amazon has also opted in to allow Twitch viewers to watch TNF live on their platform as well allowing viewers to stream Prime Time NFL games free of charge. Streaming live on Twitch helps reach a younger audience of football fans who have cut the cable cord and opt only for streaming services on their mobile devices or computers.
Through the first 14 weeks of the NFL season, 12 games have been streamed on Prime Video (the NFL’s opening game as well as the Thanksgiving day games were not covered by Thursday Night Football). Over these 12 Games Thursday Night Football was able to generate 4.5M hours watched on Twitch.
The most viewed game this year was Matt Ryan’s Indianapolis Colts taking on Russell Wilson’s Denver Broncos on October 6th, though both teams currently are ranked in the bottom half of the league.
This game was a highly anticipated Prime Time showing between a former MVP (Matt Ryan) and Super Bowl Champion (Russell Wilson) who are both playing on brand new teams that during the offseason analysts held as potential playoff teams. However, based on the low scoring 12-9 outing, the game didn’t live up to fans expectations.
The second most watched game was a no brainer with the surging Miami Dolphins facing off against the Cincinnati Bengals that took place on September 29th. This game had much anticipation heading into the match. The Dolphins started off this season red-hot thanks to the growth of Tua Tagovailoa and the connection that he has with his favorite targets Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. However, they were going against the reigning AFC Champions in this matchup and couldn’t outlast the fire power provided by Joe Burrow and crew, who proved why in the 2020 Draft he was taken #1 overall while Tua was picked #5.
The third most watched game was on October 27th featuring a matchup between 2 MVPs with Lamar Jackson’s Ravens going up against Tom Brady’s Buccaneers. This would be the second time that these two MVP’s would clash leading to a close back and forth with Lamar Jackson extending his record versus Tom Brady to 2-0.
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Disney+ is November’s leader for video streaming services in Twitch chat, clocking in at 260K mentions last month.
While also having the benefit of being attached to one of the top ten most valuable brands in the world according to Forbes, Disney+ has also taken interest in the live streaming space as a way to generate more awareness for the streaming service. Esports organization KOI, which is owned by Ibai Llanos, is sponsored by Disney+ which helps to generate more global interest for the streaming services in the Spanish Gaming community.
Netflix was the runner-up for November generating 201K mentions. This is a 19% decrease from the 249K mentions generated in October. Netflix has launched a new endeavor to create more interest and exposure for their service with Geeked: Toon In. This program is a 90 minute showcase of upcoming animated shows on Netflix hosted by Kiera Please.
Amazon Prime Video generated 70K mentions landing them in third for November. Twitch being a subsidiary of Amazon has led to many of the platform’s streamers gaining sponsorships from Prime Video in the past. Prime Video is also streaming Thursday Night Football games on the front page of Twitch during the NFL’s regular season this year.
AMD leads the charts for the most-chatted about computer parts brand on Twitch in September with almost 160K mentions.
AMD has held onto this spot for 10 months in a row since December of 2021. The computer hardware brand partners with several live streamers to promote their product, including German streamers EloTriX and NoWay4u_Sir, the two channels responsible for the top mentions of AMD last month.
AMD doesn’t have a big presence in the esports industry and they don’t often partner with esports leagues or teams to boost brand awareness or drive sales. However, last month they announced a new partnership with BOOM esports, an organization based in Indonesia. AMD will power the org’s Dota 2 and VALORANT teams and the creators will take part in some of the brand’s marketing campaigns as part of the agreements.
NVIDIA reclaimed its 2nd place spot last month from Intel with 125K mentions in Twitch chat last month. Part of their hype came partially from the anticipated release of the RTX 4090 graphics card which was released in the first part of October.
NVIDIA sponsors a large community of live streamers which they call their “Team NVIDIA,” which includes many from esports organizations including 100 Thieves, Alliance, NRG, and more. They also sponsor entire esports organizations, including Team Liquid and Luminosity. Working with creators that already have a following can help a brand gain awareness and trust among current and potential customers. User-generated content is a great way for brands to connect with an audience in live streaming, and the results can be measured in several ways, including # of chat mentions.
Another way brands can obtain recognition in the gaming community is through esports league sponsorships. Intel has taken this route by sponsoring the ESL CS:GO Pro League, which generates much of the brand’s impressions in live streaming. Intel took third place in September with 115K mentions in Twitch chat, much of which was driven by the ESL_CSGO Twitch channel during the Pro League.
Intel also sponsors their own Intel Extreme Masters league, a global CS:GO league that was started by ESL back in 2006. As one of the longest running global pro leagues, IEM has helped Intel become an industry leader in the gaming space.
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KaiCenat has quickly become one of the fastest growing content creators on Twitch in 2022. This year alone he’s gained over a million followers on the live streaming platform. On Wednesday night, he broke his own peak viewership record with 214K viewers watching his Just Chatting stream featuring rapper Lil Baby.
Kai’s high energy and comedic personality has helped him become one of the top content creators on Twitch today. In late 2021, Kai was seeing around a million hours watched of his content per month. However, that number slowly started to climb into 2022 as he gained popularity. In August, Kai became the 3rd top creator across all major live streaming platforms with 12.6 million hours watched, just behind ElSpreen and xQc who had 15.2 million and 17.8 million hours watched, respectively.
Kai’s 24-hour stream in August helped boost his numbers and audience; during that stream he averaged 79K viewers and garnered just under 2 million hours watched. Since this 24-hour stream, Kai has gone on to break Twitch’s Hype Train record, and has become one of the most subscribed streamers on the platform with over 100K active subscribers.
Kai Cenat is originally from the Bronx, New York. While growing up Kai had a drive to be the funniest person in the room. Kai has been creating content since high school, posting comedy skits on Facebook and building his local notoriety. However in 2018, Kai would begin to take the next step in his career by posting regularly on YouTube. On YouTube Kai continued to post skits and prank videos, but he also transitioned into creating more vlog-style content.
As Kai continued to create content on YouTube, he was invited to join the AMP (Any Means Possible) content creator house. Being a part of this house gave Kai opportunities to collaborate with fellow members Agent 00, ChrisNxtDoor, Duke Dennis ImDavisss, and Fanum. Eventually Kai moved from New York down to Atlanta to live with his fellow AMP members.
On February 2, 2021, Kai joined Twitch, and entered a brand new generation of live streamers which would go on to be dubbed the “W” community. Since joining Twitch, Kai has continued to grow his following while having his own fair share of trending moments. He has collaborated with many large creators like AdinRoss, BruceDropEmOff, YourRage, and xQc to create a variety of content including GTA V Role-Play, E-Dating, and regular Just Chatting streams.
He has also been a key factor in bridging the gap between pop culture and live streaming by featuring many pop culture icons in his streams like rappers Ice Spice, NLE Choppa, Polo G, and most recently Lil Baby who is currently the 14th most-streamed artist on Spotify.
Kai has also collaborated with NBA All-Star Kyrie Erving as well as with adult actress Teanna Taylor.
Kai has also pushed New York pop culture by creating clips of himself and other creators like I’mDontai doing dances like the “sturdy”.
Kai’s audience on Twitch consists mostly of males (90%) and 94% of his audience is based in the United States. His audience also skews pretty young compared to other creators, with over 90% between the ages of 20 and 29.
His audience also tends to also watch other young, high-energy creators; 30% of Kai’s audience also watched AdinRoss in September, and 27% watched xQc in the same month.
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Twitch announced that they will begin banning certain gambling streams October 18th. The news comes after top streamers like Pokimane and Mizkif threaten to go on strike after news broke of a Twitch streamer scamming others out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his gambling addiction.
The ban won’t affect all types of gambling. A statement released Tuesday night said the ban will affect “streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games that aren’t licensed in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protections.”
Stake, Rollbit, Duelbits, and Roobet are the four platforms that will be banned so far, though Twitch may expand that list in the future. The four platforms are all crypto currency gambling sites and are not regulated for U.S. use. Gambling streams featuring skill-based games like poker, sports betting, and fantasy sports won’t be affected.
Online gambling has seen massive growth on Twitch in the last 5 years. In 2016 and 2017, the gambling genre on Twitch was averaging 9 million hours watched per quarter. For context, that was only 0.6% of the total hours watched on the platform. However, the end of 2018 started to see a shift in popularity.
Both the number of unique channels and hours watched of gambling streams started to increase steadily. From Q3 2016 to Q2 2022, gambling live stream viewership on Twitch grew over 1,500%. The viewership continues to grow in 2022, with 127 million hours watched in Q2 and has already peaked at 137 million hours watched in Q3, with over a week to go in the quarter.
While the Twitch ban doesn’t get rid of all gambling, slots make up the majority of the genre’s hours watched on the platform. In Q2 of this year, slots streams accounted for 88% of all gambling content hours watched. While not all slots platforms will be banned, Stake and the other three take up a good chunk of the viewership.
Live streamers like Trainwreckstv and Roshtein almost exclusively create gambling content, sometimes streaming for 24 hours a day, playing slots on Stake.com. Trainwrecks has over 2 million followers on Twitch and regularly reaches peaks of over 50K viewers on his streams. He also partnered with Stake to create this content, betting enormous amounts of money while often telling his viewers about the risks of gambling.
Top streamer xQc also partnered with Stake.com this year for sponsored slots content. While his content used to be a variety of Just Chatting plus games like GTAV and VALORANT, xQc started mainly streaming slots in May for his Stake partnership. With over 11 million followers, xQc has a great influence on a giant section of the Twitch population.
In Q2 of this year, his viewers watched almost 9 million hours of gambling content, and he reached a peak viewership of 120K viewers. Gambling News reported in May of this year that he had raised almost $120M for Stake from viewers in just his first few weeks of the partnership.
With the Twitch ban going in effect next month, these streamers’ sponsorships will be taken away and many will have to find new sources of income. It will be interesting to see where they go from here, and if some streamers will stick with gambling, just on a different platform.
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Coinbase and VISA’s logos have seen a boost in live streaming presence in August. Combined, they took up 83% of the total credit card and crypto brand logo presence on Twitch for last month, boosted from a more even split in July.
Coinbase, an online crypto platform, saw the majority of credit card and crypto logo brand presence on Twitch last month. Their live streaming advertising strategy splits sponsorships between their partnership with the CS:GO esports league BLAST Premier and individual sponsorships with streamers. Partnering with the BLAST Premier league gets Coinbase an incredible amount of viewership, with 81% of their logo presence coming from CS:GO streams.
Gaules, the Brazilian live streamer who mainly broadcasts CS:GO tournaments, had 73% of those logo exposures. While Coinbase doesn’t officially sponsor Gaules, his co-streams of the event help the brand get in front of a ton of viewers, as he has over 3.5 million followers on Twitch.
VISA utilizes both in-game advertising and creator sponsorship to advertise in live streaming. However, they tend to trend towards in-game advertisements, with 80% of their logo presence in August coming from FIFA 22.
Mastercard, Crypto.com, and American Express all saw less than 10% of the total category’s logo presence last month, down from June and July.
Most of Mastercard’s logo presence comes from League of Legends streams, since the credit card company is partnered with LOL and Riot Games as an official sponsor of the LEC. Mastercard has also been sponsoring individual streamers playing slots and virtual casino games, which took up 40% of its logo presence in July.
Mastercard also sponsored France’s LoL circuit this summer, called the Mastercard Nexus Tour, which also brought the brand a bunch of logo viewership across live streaming.
Crypto.com struck a five-year deal with Formula 1 back in 2021, becoming an official sponsor for all of their events. In addition, the brand is featured in the Formula 1 video game, both on banners around the tracks and logos plastered on the cars. In July, the brand saw 23% of the total crypto and credit card logo presence on Twitch, boosted mostly by F1 22 streams.
American Express makes up the smallest amount of the top credit card and crypto brand logo presence this summer, appearing mostly as organic, on-screen logos from streamers browsing the web. AmEx sponsored an Amazon Music event in July called the “Lizzoverse,” which was both held in person and streamed live on Twitch to promote Lizzo’s new album. The event garnered over 40K hours watched across Amazon Music’s multiple language channels.
Brands who want to enter the gaming and live streaming space have to work to create connections with their target audiences to become reputable. Finance brands have to be extra careful with their live streaming sponsorships, since the tricky topics of money and financial security are involved. Sponsoring large events as well as individual streamers can give credibility to a brand and help connect with viewers. Hosting unique events as well draws in current and potential customers who want to watch your unique content.
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In recent years, beauty and personal care brands have started to pay more attention to the video games and esports industry as a place to target likely customers. While traditionally thought of as a male-dominated space, a recent study showed that approximately 45% of gamers in the United States identify as female.
Beauty brands like e.l.f., who didn’t make this month’s leaderboard, and benefit Cosmetics have been pioneers in marketing to gamers, especially in the live streaming community. The two brands have their own Twitch channels with e.l.f. Boasting 3.3k followers and benefit with just over 1k followers as of September, 2022. The two brands mix gaming with makeup tutorials, product reviews, and even host tournaments to bring beauty and personal hygiene to the gaming community.
Benefit Cosmetic’s Game Face Women’s Tournament series launched in the spring and will feature 9 tournaments through the rest of 2022 with a $25,500 prize pool for female gamers. The series involves other women’s gaming groups like Black Girl Gamers and The GameHers whose missions are also to uplift female gamers.
Benefit had over 26K mentions in Twitch chat last month, an extreme boost from just several hundred a year ago. As they’ve become more involved in the esports and live streaming space, gamers have begun chatting more about the beauty brand among their peers online, which can boost reputability, and of course, sales.
NYX Professional Makeup, however, was the most-mentioned personal hygiene brand in Twitch chat last month with over 40K mentions. NYX announced last year that they signed on as the official beauty partner of Dignitas, a North American esports team. The esports athletes became influencers for the NYX brand, showing off the makeup on their social media as well as on live streaming. NYX was the first beauty brand to partner with an esports team, and seemingly pioneered the esports athlete to beauty influencer pipeline with their partnership.
Beauty isn’t just for women, however. In July of this year, Dior, the luxury fashion brand, unveiled a set of outfits and car design for Gran Turismo 7, showing that beauty doesn’t just have to be for women. Their first collaboration with a video game seems to have pushed Dior to the forefront of Twitch chat, boosting their mentions by over 21%.
Axe, the men’s personal care brand, had the 4th most chat mentions last month with almost 23K. In June of this year, Axe collaborated with Fortnite, releasing the “Mistaverse,” an in-game experience where Fortnite players could play Capture the Flag. Fortnite is king when it comes to in-game branding activations, and have been pioneers in the new metaverse craze. Axe also partnered with live streaming “Bugha,” a popular Fortnite gamer, to help promote the Mistaverse event.
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Candy, cookies, and other sweets are popular with most age groups. While fast food and chips might be some of the most chatted about food categories among gamers and live streaming viewers, sweets are right behind them. Quick, sugary treats are perfect for gamers who are staying up late and playing high energy games.
Sweets brands had 163k Twitch chat mentions last month. Popular cookie brand Oreo dominated the charts with almost half of that chatter at 75.8k mentions. While Oreo hasn’t done any sponsored streams in recent months, their large number of chat mentions seems to be from their organic popularity among the live streaming community.
Oreo isn’t a stranger to the video game adjacent community, having done collaborations with popular video game franchises Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z in recent years. Oreo released limited edition sleeves of Oreos featuring Dragon Ball Z characters, only available in Japan, for the new Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero movie this past month. Their Pokemon crossover last year featured limited edition cookies featuring different characters, with some like Mew more rare than others. The anime and video games communities share a ton of overlap, and have great potential for crossover events.
Skittles was the next most talked about sweets brand in Twitch chat last month with 32k mentions. Pop Tarts, Sour Patch, and Juicy Fruit followed with 16k, 9.7k, and 6k mentions, respectively.
Sour Patch, another Mondelēz International brand (like Oreo), had one activation in live streaming last month. Their campaign, “Fruit Fight,” aimed to promote their new line of Sour Patch Kids flavors by working with four Twitch creators: Athena, GernaderJake, JonSandman and Rizzo.
The campaign series lasted several weeks, with all four streamers hosting individual streams to promote their flavor and limited edition packs of the candy. Near the end of the month, the four participated in a Rocket League tournament to battle and see who the “top flavor” would be. Most of the Sour Patch brand mentions came from these four Twitch channels, and boosted the brand’s engagement by 7% from June 2022.
Twitch creators and other live streaming personalities have quickly become brand ambassadors in recent years, with some gaining celebrity status like athletes, actors, and musicians. Activating in live streaming and esports is a great way for a brand to reach a younger, active audience. Additionally, working with Twitch creators who already have a well-established, dedicated audience can help boost impressions and give the brand credibility.
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Online gambling has seen a considerable rise in popularity in the last few years on live streaming platforms, drawing in huge audiences. Slots and poker are the two most popular types of gambling live streamed on Twitch.
At the beginning of the pandemic, people stuck in their homes started turning online for entertainment. Subsequently, live streaming hours watched increased considerably over the course of 2020 and 2021, rising 82% from 2019 to 2020 and another 21% from 2020 to 2021.
Gambling live streams also increased over the course of the pandemic. In 2020, total slots and poker hours watched sat around 224 million hours watched. In 2021, that number increased 57% to 352 million hours watched.
That number continues to rise into 2022 even as consumers have started resuming pre-pandemic habits. In the first two quarters of 2022, Twitch viewers have watched 244 million hours of online gambling streams, more than all of 2020.
In Q2 of this year, slots was the 14th most popular streaming category across all live streaming platforms with 113 million hours watched. Poker was #65 with 14.7 million hours watched.
Even as live streaming hours watched has started to settle, content creators have tapped into the addictive qualities of gambling and push the genre on live streaming.
As online gambling has continued to reach more and more consumers, some gambling companies such as Stake and PokerStars have extended their reach on Twitch. Stake has partnered with some of the biggest streamers including xQc, AdinRoss, and TrainwrecksTv to further push gambling content. PokerStars also often hosts online gambling tournaments which streamers host and commentate on.
These content creators spend thousands of dollars on slot machines and other games to entertain their fans, and get a ton of viewership doing it.
Trainwreckstv is currently the biggest slots streamer on Twitch and had 21.7 million hours watched for Q2 2022. He consistently does partnership streams with Stake playing slots online. While his peak viewership isn’t near the top with 51.5k peak viewers in 2022, his long, consistent streams continue to entertain and bring back fans.
Roshtein, a Swedish slots streamer, has been active in the online gambling community since 2016. He had the second highest hours watched last quarter at just under 20 million hours.
While xQc didn’t have the highest hours watched last quarter, his slots streams hit the highest peak concurrent viewers at 120k. xQc is currently one of the biggest Twitch streamers with over 11 million followers and is able to bring a large audience to any of his streams. Slots was his second-longest streamed category in Q2 with 115 hours aired.
DeuceAce and AdinRoss had 3.2 and 2.9 million hours watched, respectively, of slots in Q2 as well.
Online gambling companies partner with live streamers to reach thousands of potential new customers, offering sign-up incentives for viewers. The increase in sponsorship over the last few years has helped to boost online gambling’s presence in live streaming and it hasn’t shown signs of stopping yet.
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As livestreaming and esports has become more mainstream, non-gaming brands are rushing into gaming to reach young consumers where it matters. According to NewZoo 70% of Millennials game. Apparel brands are taking note, the likes of Nike, Louis Vuitton & Under Amour have all sponsored major gaming creators and esports events to reach the highly lucrative millennial and gen-z consumer market. Stream Hatchet has leveraged its logo presence score to identify the top apparel brands active within gaming live streams.
Nike was the most prominent brand with a share of 35% in the category. It’s no surprise Nike is the most prominent brand in streaming, after all, it is the most valuable apparel brand on earth, achieving a valuation of $33 billion in 2022 via Statista. One of the key drivers of Nike’s streaming dominance comes from in-game activations. 15% of the total captured appearances were generated by FIFA streamers, mostly through virtual apparel.
The second most prominent brand in game streaming is Adidas with a market share of 25.3%. Adidas has actively partnered with several gaming orgs including: G2,Team Vitality and recently 00Nation.
Puma comes in at third with a share of 12.2%. Puma has partnered with esports organizations like Gen.G and MOUZ. Puma’s brand is most prominently featured in League of Legends streams, which comprise 18.66% of Puma’s Logo Presence share. .
Italian luxury brand Kappa, is the fourth most prominent brand in game streaming, with 3.4% of the market. Kappa’s sponsorship with Triplo Sette Klan or 777 Klan has helped drive its presence among gamers. NeZak_ who is part of 777 Klan’s active roster, has 229K hours watched in June and generated 15% of Kappa’s presence share among all active brands while sporting overlays and jerseys.
Racing into Fifth place on our ranking, is Rolex holding a 3.4% share of the apparel category. The watch brand’s proximity to professional racing has helped to drive its popularity with gamers. 88% of their presence share was generated by sim-racing streamers playing F1. In-game Rolex banners found on race tracks, cars, and uniforms, showcase a strong opportunity around in-game sponsorships.
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This year’s Amazon Prime Day was a record-breaking event for the company. Consumers purchased 300 million items over the 2-day event on July 12-13, saving $1.7 billion, according to Amazon.
Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, saw a significant increase in chatter about Amazon Prime during and leading up to the event. Amazon and Amazon Prime are generally chatted about on Twitch because of the ability for fans to use Amazon Prime subscriptions on the live streaming platform. However, mentions of the company’s Prime Day event and Amazon deals and sales spiked significantly on the 12th and 13th, up 474%.
Keywords related to Amazon deals and sales are sent on average of 3.4k times a day most of the year, but during the two-day Prime Day event, the keywords were chatted almost 20k times a day.
Amazon partnered with dozens of streamers this year to promote the event. TwitchPresents had the top stream with 74.8K hours watched and 26.2K peak concurrent viewers. Their POG Picks: Prime Time event was hosted by streamers TeamSummerTime and Justaminx. The event was an interactive shopping experience on Twitch during Amazon’s Prime Day sale.
The Prime Picks event was centered around the hosts and special guests using products that were on sale on screen, demonstrating their features and capabilities. Chatters were redirected to the Amazon page where they could purchase an item shown on screen via a Twitch extension that rotated during the stream.
This event was a smart way for Amazon to activate Twitch consumers on their marketplace. The integration of the streaming service and the online store is becoming closer and more convenient. With the use of Twitch extensions, chatbots, and logos on screen, viewers have multiple ways to interact with the content and make quick, easy purchasing decisions. Additionally, hosting a live event with streamers that have familiar faces for the Twitch audience gives reputability for the event and makes fans more likely to purchase products.
Nmplol and Fextralife had the other two top sponsored streams during the Prime Day event, with 51.4k and 39.4k hours watched, respectively. Fextralife was promoting the game Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which was free with Amazon Prime during the two-day event last week. It was clever for Amazon to have Fextralife play the game while simultaneously promoting viewers to get it for free if they had or signed up for a Prime subscription.
The Prime Gaming full screen banner was seen on screen during Fextralife’s full stream, meaning viewers could see the sponsor logo throughout the stream, no matter when they entered. Oftentimes, sponsors stipulate that streamers only mention their product or brand at the beginning of the stream. This means that viewers that don’t start watching the stream until 30, 60, 90 minutes into the broadcast might have a harder time knowing who is sponsoring the stream. Having a mix of on-screen banners, automated chatbots, and streamer interaction is important for a brand looking to start activating in live streaming.
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This week we’re previewing Stream Hatchet’s 2022 Brands in Video Gaming and Esports Report. The report is perfect for brand marketers and marketing agencies looking to boost their presence in video game live streaming and esports. In the report we discuss the rise in sponsored live streams, top categories of brand mentions on Twitch, how the use of other social media platforms like Twitter can help boost campaigns, and several case studies with brands activating well in live streaming and esports.
To preview the report, we’ve pulled a page from our top categories section, looking at the top fast food brands on Twitch.
Fast food has always been the meal of choice for gamers and live streamers as a quick and easy option during long nights in front of their PCs. While fast food is ubiquitous in the community, brands still need to activate advertising campaigns in order to stay on top and in front of the most viewers and fans in live streaming.
We’ve looked at how well different fast food brands have resonated with consumers by measuring the number of brand chat mentions in Twitch chat for Q1 of this year. McDonald’s grabbed the first spot by a wide margin with 853k mentions. KFC took second place with 586k mentions and Subway nabbed the third spot with 320k mentions.
In fourth and fifth place was Wendy’s and Burger King with 263k and 245k mentions last quarter.
McDonald’s has a strong influencer marketing program, sponsoring popular streamers like Alexandra Botez who review products in stream. User generated content like this is a really authentic way for a brand to get their product in front of viewers. Additionally, chat mentions and engagements by viewers are usually boosted when a streamer talks about or uses a product on stream.
In 2019, Wendy’s worked with the popular battle royale game Fortnite to create a custom in-game character to promote their fresh, never-frozen beef product. Creating in-game events with a specific story is a great way to get fans talking about your brand, and making it a limited-time event pushes viewers to engage in a shorter period of time for a concise marketing plan.
Our 2022 Brands in Video Gaming and Esports Report is set to release next week. Click here to get the report as soon as it’s released!
We’re taking a look at the top food delivery services across Twitch by chat mentions last month.
Uber Eats was the most mentioned food delivery service mentioned in Twitch chat last month, garnering 27.7k total mentions across the live streaming platform. Only three unique channels hosted sponsored streams from Uber Eats last month, garnering a mere 1.6k hours watched. Most of their mentions, then, are coming from organic conversations among streamers and fans in Twitch chat.
Doordash was the second most-mentioned food delivery service last month, with 22.2k mentions. Doordash did 9 sponsored streams last month, garnering a total of 154k hours watched on Twitch alone. They focused on one campaign, called “DashPass for Students” promoting a new $5/month plan for graduate and undergraduate students across the country.
Their most popular sponsored stream last month, and the most popular one among all food delivery services, was with Jillyfish. The stream got 43.2k hours watched and had just under 20k peak viewers. Her stream was featured on the front page of Twitch, which helped her live streaming numbers. 2.6k chats were sent during her stream, with a chat engagement rate of 12.3%, which sits at just about the average engagement rate for Twitch chat.
In addition, Uber Eats and Doordash have been running mid-roll ads on Twitch which, in addition to sponsoring individual streamers, help boost chat engagement and impressions for viewers.
Grubhub, Foodpanda, and Deliveroo were the next top food delivery services mentioned in Twitch chat last month. They each got 5.1k, 2.9k, and 2.6k mentions, respectively.
Grubhub only had several sponsored streams with individual streamers last month, as most of their sponsorships come from the LCS.
Foodpanda also has a few sponsored streamers, generating 28k hours watched for the month of May.
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This week we’re taking a look at the top energy drink brands mentioned in Twitch chats for May 2022.
Last month, Red Bull secured the top spot with 135k mentions in Twitch chat. In second place was G Fuel with 111k mentions and in third place with 101k mentions was Monster Energy.
Bang Energy and Mountain Dew Game Fuel placed 4th and 5th for top energy drink brands mentioned in Twitch chat last month with 1.5k and 1.3k mentions respectively.
Getting Twitch chat to talk about your brand is a good way to measure engagement and potentiality to buy a product. One way brand marketers can work to increase chat mentions and brand awareness of their product is by getting streamers themselves to talk about or use the product.
Having shorter sponsored segments where the streamer uses or talks about the product for 30 seconds at the start of the stream can get a conversation going in Twitch chat, making the sponsorship more memorable for viewers.
While Red Bull came in first for chat mentions, it placed second in brand logo presence for energy drink brands. Overall, Red Bull had 3.7% of the total brand logo presence across all brand types on Twitch. It was second to only Monster Energy, which had just over 4% of logo presence across Twitch.
Many of these energy drink logos are showing up in live streaming in the background of streamer’s channels. Whether it’s on an actual can of the energy drink, or on a branded mini fridge, the logos are showing up during a majority of the duration of the stream.
iiTzTimmy had the highest percentage of Red Bull logo presence on his channel, with 7% of the total presence share. Most of these logos popped up on his Red Bull mini fridge, as an in-stream product placement.
For brand marketers, in-stream product placements are a good way to show viewers that the streamers actually like and use the product. However, these placements are sometimes blocked by streamer chairs, or are blurry in the background. Viewers can also get used to seeing these placements if they remain static in every stream, so brand marketers should make sure they are mixing up brand sponsorships in live streaming.
Placing rotating logos across the top or bottom of the stream can be a good way to add movement into the stream, making viewers look every time the logo changes.
Did you know Stream Hatchet has a “Campaigns” tool to help you deploy rotating banners, logos, and QR codes right into your influencers’ Twitch streams? Just upload your team, add your logos, and copy and send the link to get your campaign going in minutes.
To learn more, drop us a line for a free demo and trial of our product!
This week, Stream Hatchet is taking a look at fan engagement with sportswear brands in Twitch chat. We’re looking specifically at English language channels for the month of April 2022.
Nike took the top spot with 25k mentions in Twitch chat last month. No sponsored streams were recorded from Nike last month, which means all of their mentions were organically created.
Some of the highest viewed chat messages were sent during a Just Chatting segment on xQcOW’s channel on April 18th. He said he wanted to buy comfortable sweatpants and his chat immediately started giving recommendations, many of which were Nike. During that stream, 56 chat messages mentioned the brand Nike, while 31 mentioned another sportswear brand, LuLuLemon.
The second most mentioned sportswear brand in April was Adidas, with 16k mentions. Puma came in third place with just under 10k chat mentions. Reebok and The North Face had considerably less, with 936 and 833 chat mentions, respectively.
After analyzing the stream titles for last month, very few of these brands seem to be sponsoring or activating with live streamers on Twitch. When looking at logo recognition using Stream Hatchet’s Brands Tool, many of these companies’ logos that show up on stream are often organic placements. Athleisure being the preferred clothing style of gamers, many streamers can be seen wearing clothing from Adidas or Puma. Other times logos like Nike show up in sports games like Fifa.
Often, these brands are getting logo placements from esports teams they sponsor, and logos on jerseys or banners at tournaments are showing up on the main channel or on co-streams. Some of these brands seem to have a good foothold in the video game live streaming community like Nike and Adidas. Other brands like Reebok and The North Face that want to compete with bigger names would probably benefit from sponsoring some streamers to get more logo exposure and fan engagement with their brands.
Multiple ways to do this include sponsoring a streamer and customizing their stream title as well as having a logo banner on screen for brand awareness. A next step would including having product placements in stream and having the streamer talk about the brand. Choosing streamers with high chat engagement implies a good connection with their audience. These fans often trust and listen to the streamer, allowing the brand to gain trust amongst an audience.
For more insights on how to level up your brand marketing plan and gain engagement in the video game live streaming community, drop us a line and schedule a demo to see all that Stream Hatchet can offer.
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With the rise of video game live streaming in the last few years, automotive brands have been increasingly active on Twitch and other platforms. Sponsoring Twitch streamers, esports events, and running in-stream branded content can all support a brand’s marketing plan for video game live streaming activations. In turn, viewers turn to Twitch chat to discuss the content, getting more exposure for the brands. Stream Hatchet is taking a look at the top auto brands on Twitch by chat mentions last month.
Last month, luxury car brands dominated the automotive industry Twitch chat, with Ferrari on top at 85k mentions. Ferrari also appeared in chat in the most diverse range of places, with 21k unique channels.
Mercedes-Benz was second in the top auto brands on Twitch last month with 55k chat mentions across 15k unique channels. Many of these chat mentions were, understandably, made while streamers were playing racing and driving games like Grand Theft Auto V, Forza Horizon 5, and F1 2021. However, many chat messages were sent throughout the month during other categories as well, like Just Chatting, Sports, and other popular non-driving games.
Audi had the third-highest mentions with 44k mentions across 13k channels. In 4th place was Porsche with 40k mentions across almost 10k channels. In 5th place was the only non-luxury car brand, Chevrolet. They received 17k Twitch chat mentions across 7k channels.
Stream Hatchet’s focused on connecting real time data to trends across the gaming world, with the goal of maximizing content insights across the video games and esports industry. Our new Brands tool measures chat engagement, brand logo presence across live streaming platforms, and competitive analysis for your brand across your industry and live streaming as a whole.
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After three years on Twitch, Sykkuno announced he is switching to YouTube Gaming.
May 1st was dubbed “Sykkuno Day” by streamers and fans to celebrate his streaming milestone. His Twitch stream featured a Minecraft speedrun with streamer friends, including Valkyrae, Ludwig, Disguised Toast and more. At the end of the stream, he thanked his fans for their support.
This last stream, which lasted just over 7 hours, got 122k hours watched and a peak viewership of 30.6k concurrents. However, the next day, Sykkuno announced in a video that he would be continuing to stream, just on another platform: YouTube.
To commemorate his final day on Twitch, Stream Hatchet is taking a look back at Sykkuno’s top streamer stats for his three-year history on the platform.
In 3 years on Twitch, Sykkuno streamed for 4,683 hours and garnered 95.6 million hours watched. In that time, his fans sent over 44 million chat messages on his channel.
Sykkuno’s top streaming category was, undoubtably, Grand Theft Auto V. GTA V had over 36 million hours watched, or a third of his total streaming hours. His most popular stream was a GTA V stream on May 11th, 2021. He reached a peak concurrent viewership of over 111k viewers and almost 850k hours watched.
His next most popular game was Among Us, which had over 17 million hours watched, or 20% of his total streaming hours. He played Among Us during some of his most popular streams with his friends Valkyrae, Disguised Toast, Corpse Husband, and others.
His third top game was Valorant, which got 9.4 million hours watched. Rust and Minecraft make up #4 and #5 with 5 million hours watched each.
As Sykkuno joins YouTube, it will be interesting to see how his streaming numbers do. Will his fanbase from Twitch follow him in his new chapter on YouTube? Additionally, will his streaming numbers increase like Valkyrae’s did when she made the switch?
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Anime and video game audiences have historically always had a large amount of overlap. According to Interpret, anime viewers are 1.5x more likely to be weekly PC/Console gamers than non-viewers. The anime and video games industries have influenced each other for years, so understanding what gamers and live streaming audiences are talking about is important for understanding how these audiences overlap.
Here are the top 10 mentioned anime titles in Twitch chat for February 2022:
1st: Pokemon – 2,3000,000
2nd: Naruto – 391,000
3rd: One Piece – 240,000
4th: Attack on Titan – 217,000
5th: Demon Slayer – 202,000
6th: Dragonball Z – 192,000
7th: Bleach – 134,000
8th: My Hero Academia – 51,000
9th: Death Note – 49,000
10th: Jujutsu Kaisen – 48,000
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In a highly anticipated announcement Tuesday, Pokimane assured her fans that she would be staying on Twitch. Amidst the current platform war between Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming, fans and others speculated that she might change her contract. In recent years, YouTube Gaming has enticed big streamers like Valkyrae, CouRage, TimTheTatman, and others to leave Twitch. Stream Hatchet has taken a look at the data and here are some insights into the current platform war and why Pokimane might have chosen to stay on Twitch:
By taking an alternate look at the data and focusing on average concurrent viewership, we can see some changes. Valkyrae still garnered the highest percent change in viewership, but Ludwig and TimTheTatman’s average viewership have both increased since their switch to YouTube Gaming.
It’s hard to say whether Pokimane would have increased her viewership if she had switched to YouTube Gaming. However, for some streamers, the switch was a no-brainer. It will be interesting to track the performance of channels newer to the platform over time.
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Live streaming platforms like Twitch have been slowly expanding beyond gaming content. Podcasts, talk shows, and even financial news have emerged as topics of interest. Along with these new content opportunities lies the abundance of live streamed sports games. In the age of cable cutting, sites like Twitch or YouTube could be the perfect home for sports with the added benefits of reaching new, younger audiences while also leveraging live chat. This week, Stream Hatchet analyzes the growth of sports content on Twitch in 2021.
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One of the biggest growing trends this past year has been the growth of non-gaming live streaming content. When the global shutdown put a pause on live events, music and sports were just some of the industries that utilized live streaming to adapt to virtual audiences.
The communal, interactive nature of live streaming provides the audience with real time engagement and a more accessible venue compared to in-person events. A potentially larger audience and easy integration make live streaming platforms a great long-term home for these industries.
Here are key insights:
Stream Hatchet’s focused on connecting real time data to trends across the gaming world, with the goal of maximizing content insights across the video games and esports industry. Our new Pro platform is robustly built with the key tools for running marketing activations on live streaming platforms.
Stream Hatchet’s Pro platform can:
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In June, Stream Hatchet released our Brands Leading in Gaming and Esports report. Included in the report is how both endemic and non-endemic brands are broadening their reach by marketing on live streaming platforms. Sponsored video game live streams have increased 98%, highlighting a shift away from traditional media channels and into streaming.
One non-endemic brand developing its brand presence in gaming and esports is the beauty and cosmetic industry. Although gaming has traditionally been a male-dominated hobby, a recent study suggests that female gamers currently represent 41 percent of the total in the United States and 40 to 45 percent in Asia. Beauty brands have the perfect opportunity to reach the growing female audience and break the mold of what a typical gamer “looks like” by marketing on live streaming platforms.
The market for beauty brands within the gaming industry is clearly there, however, the question remains: have beauty companies begun activating successfully? Below, Stream Hatchet outlines three beauty brands that have leveraged live streaming platforms to reach younger audiences.
In May, e.l.f. (eyes, lips, face) Cosmetics launched their very own Twitch channel, elfyou. To celebrate the launch, e.l.f. held a three-hour live stream event on May 9th, hosted by gamer/makeup artist Autumn Rhodes featuring Twitch streamers Loserfruit and Fasffy. As a result, the stream generated over 6K hours watched and reached 15K peak viewers.
Back in 2020, e.l.f. tested their brand on live streaming platforms by partnering with Fortnite streamer Loserfruit. She promoted the brand via a YouTube make-up tutorial featuring e.l.f. makeup artist Anna Bynum. In fact, Loserfruit continues playing a major role on the channel through streaming Fortnite and Just Chatting content every Thursday. Today, e.l.f. Cosmetics’ Twitch channel has amassed 1.5K followers on Twitch.
In July, e.l.f. generated over 2K chat mentions across Twitch. During that month, the cosmetic brand held giveaways during Twitch streams for e.l.f. products like the Jelly Pop Collection that increased chat engagement.
Colourpop Cosmetics is the G FUEL of the makeup world. They have their pulse on the trends of pop culture and are masters at interweaving it into makeup collections to help generate brand affinity. Their past collaborations with Sailor Moon and Lizzie McGuire both sold out instantly.
In January, Colourpop ventured into the video game industry with the release of their Animal Crossing: New Horizons collection. The launch featured 11 new products with shades inspired by Animal Crossing colors and characters. Additionally, players of Animal Crossing: New Horizons were able to visit Colourpop Island. Moreover, the Queens Gaming Collective did an island takeover stream. The stream generated over 1K hours watched with 705 peak viewers.
Colourpop Cosmetics’ many collection collaborations have helped create long-lasting brand recognition. Colourpop produced 781 Twitch chat mentions through July.
Following in the footsteps of e.l.f., Benefit Cosmetics launched their own Twitch channel on June 30th, 2021. The channel idea evolved from an earlier version of their “Game On” campaign, in partnership with global esports organization Gen G. This collaboration, exclusively for the US and Australia, included a weekly video series on Benefits’ Instagram and YouTube channels. The videos showcased the beauty routines and stories of four female streamers.
Benefit’s “Game Face”, the rebranded name for Twitch’s version of “Game On,” is all about “hyping up gamers who want to wear their best Benefit Game Face as they play all day.” To kick off the channel, Benefit hosted a week of streams that began June 21st. Additionally, they partnered with over 20 gamers from all over the world. QuarterJade streamed a “Get Ready With Me” discussing being a female in a male-dominated industry. The stream achieved over 5K hours watched and 3K peak viewers.
Benefit Cosmetics’ continuation of its “Game Face” campaign is paying off. Benefit Cosmetics generated 663 Twitch chat mentions during July.
Stream Hatchet is focused on connecting real-time data to trends across the gaming world, with the goal of maximizing content insights across the video games and esports industry. Our new Pro platform is robustly built with the key tools for running marketing activations on live streaming platforms.
Stream Hatchet’s Pro platform can:
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Over the last few years, food brands have leveraged the power of live streaming. More notably, influencers’ ability to draw in loyal viewers time and time again. As noted in Stream Hatchet’s recent Brands report, sponsored video game live streams have increased 98% since 2020, highlighting the growing shift away from traditional media channels.
Live streaming platforms are a great testing ground for consumer reception to new products and overall feelings on a brand; a virtual focus group. Moreover, Twitch chat is home to thousands of virtual public focus groups happening simultaneously. Thus, allowing brands to not just measure feedback on their own products, but on their competition.
Here are some notable food brands leveraging Twitch:
Out of all the food brands for the month of June, McDonald’s generated the most Twitch chat mentions at 325K. A solid amount of the chatter was surrounding the recent ad featuring popular Twitch streamers and married couple itshafu and dogdog. The ad featured the two enjoying the new crispy chicken sandwich together on Twitch.
Earlier this year, McDonald’s Southern California became an official marketing partner of LAFC Gaming, the esports division of Los Angeles Football Club. As part of the partnership, McDonald’s serves as the presenting partner for LAFC’s brand-new gaming room located in their headquarters.
Around the same time, McDonald’s Happy Meals were flying off the shelves for a chance to collect rare Pokémon cards. The promotion was in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Pokémon Pocket Monsters. Four Pokémon cards were included with each meal out of a 50 card set. Unsurprisingly, the promotion sold out fast, with many content creators filming themselves opening dozens of packs.
In June, KFC generated 238K Twitch chat mentions. Similar to Pizza Hut, KFC creates original marketing campaigns that seamlessly integrate into gaming and esports culture. Particularly, KFC is comfortable leaning into creating memes to gain viewers’ attention and establish a long-lasting impression.
One such meme is the KFConsole in partnership with Cooler Master. Announced in late 2020 following the PS5 and Xbox console releases, KFC joked on Twitter that “the console wars are over” with the launch of their very own gaming system. The bucket-shaped console not only included 4K capability and VR compatibility but also a built-in “Chicken Chamber” made for keeping KFC orders warm.
In 2019, following the success of the popular “Dream Daddy” dating simulator game, KFC launched their very own title, “I Love You, Colonel Sanders!” where players could court a young Colonel Sanders. Content creators like jacksepticeye, GameGrumps, and ItsFunneh all made videos playing the game which helped generate tons of buzz for the KFC brand.
Chipotle’s average demographic aligns perfectly with the typical gamer age range, Gen Zs and Millennials. Acknowledging this, Chipotle continuously leverages all aspects of live streaming, from influencers to esports. Chipotle has been featured twice in Stream Hatchet’s #Ads of the Week, with TimTheTatman securing the number one spot from his participation in the 2020 Chipotle Challenger Series.
Launched in 2019, The Chipotle Challenger Series was part of a partnership deal with DreamHack and ESL. The on-site events at DreamHack Dallas and DreamHack Atlanta allowed attendees to compete for a custom trophy, a card that grants them a year of free Chipotle, and merchandise.
Since the success of the inaugural year, Chipotle continues hosting the series, with the current 2021 season highlighting four PUBG mobile events and $70,000 in grand prize money. Chipotle’s ongoing success with live streaming viewers is emphasized by the 83K chat mentions in June of 2021, when Chiptole become one of the first brands to join the Official Marketing Partners program for /twitchgaming.
In late June, Pizza Hut became an official partner of Twitch Rivals North America. With this partnership came the return of last year’s limited-time series, Friday Night Bites. The series featured celebrities and content creators gaming and chatting.
On June 25th, T-Pain made a comeback to the program with a sponsored stream playing Gartic, a drawing guessing game. The stream generated over 4K hours watched with 2K peak viewers.
Back in 2019, Pizza Hut and EA Sports made a historic deal for the naming rights of a virtual stadium. Dubbed “The Pizza Hut Stadium,” the in-game arena could be seen during the Madden NFL 20 Classic event. Pizza Hut’s innovative marketing campaigns helped generate 41K Twitch chat mentions in June.
For this list, Hershey’s generated the least Twitch chat mentions for June with 16K mentions. In the past, Hershey’s had a major brand presence in gaming and esports. In 2018, Hershey’s partnered with popular streamers Ninja and DrLupo to celebrate the launch of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Reese’s Pieces at TwitchCon. This was Hershey’s first campaign in the gaming industry and back then it was a huge risk for a non-endemic brand to take.
Back in 2019, Kit Kat signed their first esports partnership with The Los Angeles Valiant, a professional Overwatch team. This partnership gave them the naming rights to Rivalry Weekend along with branded content for streaming and social media. With Hershey’s established brand power, it’s safe to assume it would not be difficult for them to get back on top.
Stream Hatchet’s focused on connecting real time data to trends across the gaming world, with the goal of maximizing content insights across the video games and esports industry. Our new Essentials platform is robustly built with the key tools for running marketing activations on live streaming platforms.
Stream Hatchet’s Essentials platform can:
Ready to enhance your go-to marketing strategy with Stream Hatchet? Get started with a free trial today.
Energy drink brands are turning their attention towards live streaming platforms like Twitch to integrate seamlessly with gaming and esports culture. Investopedia reported that global energy drink sales reached $57.4 billion in 2020 and are expected to grow by 7% between 2020 and 2025. Moreover, Market Research Future predicts the live streaming market is expected to reach $247 billion by 2027. Similar to how sports drinks such as Gatorade and Powerade utilize popular professional athletes to sell their products, energy drink companies are partnering with top live streamers and esports teams to promote theirs.
Being an entertaining streamer is essential for drawing in viewers, however, most top-tier streamers are highly skilled video game players. Thus, a skilled video game player like NICKMERCS with Call of Duty: Warzone or Shroud with VALORANT is ideal for winning brand deals.
Similarly, a skilled streamer using a certain keyboard, headset, mouse, etc. builds brand reputation. This helps brands market their products as performance-enhancing gear. The same goes for energy drinks highlighting their products as “designed for gamers” to take gaming performance to the next level with focus-enhancing products.
Here are the top energy drinks mentioned in Twitch chats for May 2021:
G FUEL is #1 when it comes to marketing on live streaming platforms. Founded in 2012 and dubbed “The Official Energy Drink of Esports,” G FUEL has created a powerhouse roster of flavors and sponsored streamers over the last 9 years. Stream Hatchet highlighted G FUEL in its recent Brands Leading in Gaming and Esports report, noting G FUEL’s strong understanding of gaming and esports culture.
In early May, G FUEL released a Resident Evil Village inspired flavor and shaker, playing on a popular character turned meme, Lady Dimitrescu. That same month, G FUEL gathered 293K Twitch chat messages, the most of any energy drink on this list.
Back in 2013, Red Bull made a name for themselves in gaming and esports with the initial partnership of Matthew ‘Nadeshot’ Haag. This partnership lasted for nearly 6 years while he was part of the OpTic Gaming’s professional Call of Duty team. In 2019, Nadeshot landed another Red Bull deal, this time his entire gaming organization 100 Thieves secured a partnership.
Additionally, Red Bull has hosted a slew of esports events globally. Just this year, Red Bull launched a new pro VALORANT competition, Red Bull Home Ground. The best teams in Europe battled it out for a £24,000 prize pool between Jan 28th – 31st, 2021. The event garnered almost 500K hours watched with a peak of 64K viewers.
Red Bull is a veteran in the gaming and esports space. They continue to maintain their reputation as a top-tier brand deal for streamers and esports teams. In May, Red Bull generated 129K Twitch chat mentions, a majority of it coming from Riot Games’ channel during MSI 2021 where Red Bull’s long-standing sponsored segment ‘Red Bull Baron Power Play’, a League of Legends team kill of the Baron Nashor, can occur.
Similar to Red Bull, Monster Energy has infiltrated the esports space via sponsoring esports teams. Particularly, their first partnership with Evil Geniuses back in 2015 is still ongoing. The growing gaming and esports market in other countries are where Monster Energy has shifted its focus. Currently, Monster Energy has 9 esports team partnerships from all over the globe. Teams like United Kingdom’s Wizzite, Sweden’s Alliance, and China’s PSG.LGD.
In April of this year, Monster Energy partnered with Indian esports organization Villager Esports. Together, they sponsored a VALORANT tournament featuring 256 teams of professional Indian esports players. Villager Esports streamed the event on their YouTube channel producing 10K hours watched and 3K peak viewers. Monster Energy generated 16K Twitch chat mentions in May 2021, a 62% increase from April 2021’s 9K mentions.
Bang Energy has built a solid ambassador program over the last decade. Their focus is mainly assembling the best-looking social media influencers who can help target college students and fitness junkies. However, Bang Energy also acknowledges the potential of recruiting gaming and esports ambassadors.
As part of their Bang Revolution World Tour, Bang Energy advertised to the E3 2019 gaming audience. Although Bang Energy’s marketing focus is mainly on TikTok and Instagram, their brand recognition is broad and generated 4K Twitch chat mentions in May 2021.
Mountain Dew Game Fuel’s gaming and esports marketing goes back to 2007. Back then, Game Fuel bottles featured Master Chief to help promote Halo 3’s release. Today, Game Fuel is following in G FUEL’s footsteps by fostering a large roster of top streamers and esports players to promote Game Fuel as a part of their influencer lifestyle.
Most notably, YouTube Gaming streamer CouRage joined the Game Fuel partners team in January 2020. Earlier this month he received his very own Game Fuel flavor, CouRageous Sherbet. He is the first person to ever have a Pepsi product named after him.
Additionally, Game Fuel was announced as “the official beverage of the Call of Duty League” during the league’s inaugural year of 2020. The deal is set until the end of the CDL 2022 season. Stream Hatchet reported the opening weekend for CDL’s 2021 season generated 83K average viewers, a 63% increase from 2020.
In May, Game Fuel generated 3K mentions in Twitch chat. A majority of these mentions were generated from Mizkif’s channel, a streamer part of the One True King gaming organization and partner of Game Fuel.
Stream Hatchet’s focused on connecting real time data to trends across the gaming world, with the goal of maximizing content insights across the video games and esports industry. Our new Essentials platform is robustly built with the key tools for running marketing activations on live streaming platforms.
Stream Hatchet’s Essentials platform can:
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With summer officially started and Covid restrictions lifting, alcoholic beverage companies are expanding their digital marketing campaigns. Stream Hatchet examined the top beer brands mentioned in Twitch chat over the past 7 days. Beer brands, similar to energy drink companies, recognize the rapidly-growing marketing opportunities live streaming platforms present. Stream Hatchet’s recent Brands Leading in Gaming and Esports report noted that sponsored video game live streams have increased upwards of 99% since 2020. Additionally, as live streaming becomes more mainstream, beer brands are utilizing influencer lifestyles to enhance their marketing strategy. A great example of this utilization is the February 2021 partnership announcement between North American esports organization Team Liquid and Bud Light, naming them the official beer of their League of Legends team.
Non-sponsored content also helps build beer brand awareness. Just this week, popular Twitch streamer Ludwig provided his official beer tier list on stream. The stream garnered 20K hours watched with 19K peak viewers. A majority of the chat mentions for beer brands in the past 7 days were generated from his tier list stream.
More insights from the top mentioned beer brands on Twitch in the past 7 days:
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Twitch subscriptions have seen major growth in the past year. Stream Hatchet estimates that Twitch Prime, a sub tier through an Amazon Prime subscription, had over a 36% increase with 41 million subs. Prime Gaming offers many perks that could attract prospective subscribers. Notably, a free monthly Twitch channel subscription, usable on any partnered or affiliated channel, is a major Twitch Prime perk. This includes access to channel-specific perks like chat access, emoticons, and badges. Loyal viewers who continually return to the platform drive engagement, resulting in a 97% increase in viewership from the previous year.
Going forward, Twitch will likely see more subscriber growth thanks to their recent announcement of local subscription prices beginning in Q3 of this year. Moreover, the cost of subscriptions will reflect the user’s local cost of living instead of a set price. Additionally, this will allow Twitch subscriptions to be more affordable for viewers globally.
Here are some key insights for Twitch subscriptions over the past year:
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There has been tons of buzz around cryptocurrencies in the past few months. While not all the talk has been positive, the trend of cryptocurrencies continues to grow online. Live streaming sites, like Twitch, have proven to be a popular forum to discuss the topic.
Cardano, the second-most-mentioned crypto in chat, has gained substantial value. Cardano is an open-sourced, software-only project. xQcOW’s channel had 82 mentions of ADA in chat. This was mostly during his Grand Theft Auto V streams. A well-known phrase associated with Cardano is “Cardano to the moon” where investors joke the surge in growth will take the currency to the moon. There were 190 mentions of that phrase in the last 30 days and 301 mentions of “ada to the moon.”
Additionally, there are many reasons why people are interested in cryptocurrency. One of the biggest reasons is its lack of ties to any one government. Meaning, it has the potential to not be affected by economic problems in a specific country. However, this hasn’t stopped governments from attempted to regulate it. China has just announced it is banning financial institutions and payment companies from processing crypto likely causing an increase in chatter on Twitch.
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Gaming platforms like Twitch, YouTube and Facebook might just be the perfect place for meal delivery services to advertise. It’s far more convenient for gamers to swipe through an app than run down to the kitchen and prepare a full meal. DoorDash has recognized and targeted this opportunity leading to increased Twitch chat engagement during their sponsored segments.
Marketers have recognized this opportunity and are activating with influencer marketing and esports sponsorship. Because of this, increased brand affinity is driving revenue for businesses. Influencers ordering during their streams directly displays the convenience offered by these services. Alternatively, esports sponsorship conveys a sense of expertise and authenticity within the esports industry. A few of the major brands in the category include: Grubhub, DoorDash, UberEats, Postmates and JustEat.
DoorDash led the meal delivery service category due to a platform wide ad buy, and several influencer marketing activations. The advertising campaign featured Anthony Kongphan, a major streamer who generated 215,924 live stream hours watched in last month. DoorDash’s influencer marketing campaigns featured: TheBlackHokage, Aa9Skillz, Queensgg, and LinoYeen who collectively generated 108,000 sponsored hours watched.
From an engagement perspective, DoorDash generated over 50,000 chat mentions, that’s over 2 times the category average. Messages for DoorDash spiked on March 25th with over 2,000 messages sent in a single day. About 15% of that day’s messages were generated on Aa9skillz’s, a FIFA influencer, during his sponsored stream. Clearly, DoorDash has found a successful strategy to increase its total Twitch chat engagement and reach.
Stream Hatchet helps marketers and brands make informed decisions around advertising and sponsorship by leveraging real-time data to maximize exposure for live gaming audiences. For more information on how brands can leverage streaming data to enhance sponsorship visit us online at: www.StreamHatchet.com.
For the past three years, the Battle Royale genre has captivated live streaming audiences on Twitch, YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming. However, Twitch has largely dominated the category as of late leading battle royale viewership in February. Popular BR titles like Fortnite and PUBG have managed to sustain respectable audiences and player bases for multiple years. Activision / Blizzard and Electronic Arts have followed the trend and sustain sizable audiences around Call Of Duty: Warzone and Apex Legends.
Although game genres often come and go, the battle royale genres has cemented itself as one of the giants. Battle royale viewership has increased over the past few years and looks to continue to grow with more titles venturing into the genre. Even Halo will join the category if rumors about upcoming launch is true, pushing more eyeballs to the genre. This year will likely be another great year for battle royales if the first two months are any indication.
This week, our insights examine a cut of streaming activity in February 2021:
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This week, Stream Hatchet summarizes minute-level activity on Twitch across 2020. Every minute on Twitch carries a plethora of data about chat messages, viewership, subscriptions, and more. The above graphic provides a look into user behavior during a turbulent year of growth for the live streaming industry.
The 2021 NWSL draft was streamed live on Twitch on January 13th, 2021 continuing the league’s trend of using the streaming platform to extend reach and awareness. Another differentiator to leverage Twitch is the immediate engagement with viewers via chat messages to identify popular topics or analyze sentiment. In Stream Hatchet’s latest analysis, Sky Blue FC was the most talked about team during the 2021 NWSL draft with almost 200 mentions in chat. The New Jersey based soccer club may have the most engaged fan base or an audience more likely to be Twitch users leading to the increased chatter. The NWSL is one of the most innovative sports leagues and is setting an incredible precedent for other leagues to use live streaming sites to generate more viewership for drafts, games, and other events.
On Wednesday, December 15th, 2020, Twitch officially announced that the term “simp” (along with “incel” and “virgin”) are now against the platform’s terms of services. The news spread quickly across the live streaming community which led to plenty of discussions and, of course, memes. However, the banning didn’t seem to stop Twitch users from testing the limits of the new ToS additions. Adversely, the banning led to an increase of “simp” mentions in chat to almost double the previous 15 day average. Gaming slang is often hard to control but only time will tell if Twitch can phase the term out of its users’ vocabulary.
The future of streaming is female. The audiences of female streamers continue to grow in 2020 as inclusivity and equal opportunity become as important as ever in the industry. To celebrate the women forging the path, Stream Hatchet analyzed the top ten female streamers on Twitch in 2020.
The 2x Champ returned to streaming after weeks of silence and speculation surrounding his ban on Twitch. The anticipation behind Dr Disrespect’s first stream back was met with a countdown that sent a wave of hype throughout the industry. In a similar fashion, Ninja’s first stream on YouTube after his contract with Mixer ended due to the platform ceasing operations was also front-page news. While Ninja didn’t have the mysterious disappearance or countdown teaser that Doc did, he still managed to generate solid viewership. Comparatively, Dr Disrespect’s return to streaming was his best stream yet while Ninja saw his peak back in 2018.
As streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube fight for market share, a main focus has been esports viewership. Many leagues kicked off their seasons and large tournaments were held last weekend while broadcasting on the two most popular streaming sites in North America.
This week, Stream Hatchet investigates the viewership breakdown of live Average Minute Audience (AMA) between Twitch and YouTube across some of the big esports events that recently took place.
For more info on esports media rights → www.StreamHatchet.com
Over the last week, Escape From Tarkov, a realistic survival FPS is changing the meta of the game streaming ecosystem. Battlestate Games, the publisher, has been able to pull significant audiences to streamers of their title by integrating viewer drops into streaming platforms like Twitch. Our insights focus on the top Tarkov streamers last week:
The importance of influencer marketing for reaching gamers can’t be overstated. In 2024, the market size for influencer marketing reached $24M USD – nearly double the size of the market just three years earlier. But with so many brands and publishers having cottoned on to the importance of influencer marketing, the issue becomes how to stand out from the crowd.
Live streaming on sites like Twitch offers many unique opportunities to engage new customers, using long-form and highly personalized content to deliver exciting branded experiences. Even better, these streams can then be repurposed into short form content for other social media apps like Instagram and TikTok. Finding creative brand activations via live streaming therefore offers the best chance of capturing users’ attention amidst the flurry of online advertisements, while also showcasing what’s most unique about your product or game.
In this article, we’re looking at some examples of creative influencer marketing campaigns to provide inspiration for your own brand activations. If you’re interested in some more in-depth, personalized advice, check out how Stream Hatchet’s consultants can work with you to create a custom campaign:
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This first approach is particularly useful for game publishers whose titles feature engaging worlds and distinct art styles or characters. Creating real life costumes and props based on elements of a game brings the game world to life and reinforces a transmedia approach to marketing. In other words, this isn’t just a game you’ve released: It’s a universe suited for all kinds of storytelling possibilities, from comics to shows to live performances. Turning a game into reality captivates fans, particularly for long-running franchises. Consider Hacksmith, who turn pop culture weapons into working prototypes (like Samus’s arm cannon from Metroid).
Perhaps the most common approach to this strategy is cosplay – a particularly strong drawcard for fans of anime-themed games (where the cosplay subculture originated). Game publishers can partner with well-known cosplayers like Emiru to design the perfect costume replica of one of their iconic characters, assisting with official permission to use their designs or with art direction and resources. MissMikkaa’s cosplay of 2B from Nier: Automata was a fantastic way to promote the crossover event between Nier: Automata and Naraka: Bladepoint due to both games having an anime aesthetic, and the collaboration itself being an example of transmedia marketing.
While cosplay and props are great ideas for games with intricate worlds, challenge-type content better suits games with a hardcore player base that want to show off their skills. A slew of challenge-heavy games have captured the attention of live-streaming audiences in recent years, from more straight-forward challenges like Chained Together to the more involved challenges of Souls-likes and ARPGs. Challenges can either reinvigorate older games by adding a new challenge (say, to promote the release of DLC) or be used on launch to showcase the complexity of the game’s mechanics. Naturally, game publishers and brands will want to ignite these challenges by inviting influencers to take part (also giving them a chance to show off their skills).
While simple challenges like speedruns or no-hit runs are standard go-to options, it’s worth thinking outside the box to catch people’s attention. Take Superlouid64’s challenge run of Elden Ring, for example, in which he played the game exclusively using a controller he had constructed out of a banana. This odd gimmick was enough of a hook to reignite passion from the Elden Ring fanbase (who were no doubt exhausted by the flood of regular challenge runs). Keep in mind that challenges don’t have to be solo affairs: These challenges can catch on as trends, with streamers tasking their friends to also complete the challenge (and a subsequent wave of streamers jumping on the bandwagon to generate views).
For games that have both in-depth worlds AND feature technically challenging gameplay, a hybrid approach to brand activations can work even better. These kinds of combos create “event viewing” for streamers, justifying higher production value and greater amounts of hype. This might mean set dressing, professional trailers, promoting the event weeks ahead of schedule, and even cameos. All of these elements make these “event streams” stand out from the regular schedule of more relaxed streams.
No one does event streaming better than Kai Cenat, who has made a name for himself with marathon streams in which he completes difficult games. For a streamer who typically generates millions of hours watched from IRL content alone, fans get extra excited when he decides to devote his time to a particular video game. While there are many examples, Kai Cenat’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice marathon was one of the first to combine multiple influencer marketing elements to create event viewing. A fully produced trailer added an air of prestige to the event, combined with full set dressing and cosplay as the game’s protagonist, and all of this layered on top of the marathon stream challenge.
Taking this event streaming logic one step further, game publishers and brands can team up to produce even bigger events that group together multiple streamers in much-anticipated collaborations. These collaborations cross-pollinate different streamers’ audiences, which not only means a larger target audience for the publisher or brand, but also the potential for streamers to grow their fan base as well. For this reason, streamers are even more likely to want to participate, putting the publisher/brand in the position to offer something more than just money. Of course, this means brands have to be extra selective with which streamers they choose to partner with – a task made easier with something like Stream Hatchet’s AI Discovery tool.
Minecraft is the perfect game for this type of brand activation, featuring an expansive, adaptable world and instantly recognizable IP. The publishers leveraged their large base of Minecraft content streamers to source 40 streamers who battled it out in The Ender Cup (a celebration of Minecraft’s 15th anniversary). These types of events are important for solidifying the importance of games in gaming in online culture by creating an atmosphere of “everyone’s playing this”. No doubt many friend groups created their own mini-tournaments off the back of The Ender Cup’s success. While this particular event was competitive, creator-led events can also be collaborative such as k4sen’s Final Fantasy XIV collaboration in which a group of beginner players mounted an assault against some of the game’s toughest bosses.
Earlier, we mentioned the idea of thinking beyond the game itself to develop a transmedia approach to promotion. Going even further afield, why not develop a non-gaming method to promote one’s game while still leveraging the live-streaming format? Getting streamers out of the gaming chair can be a welcome switch-up for fans, pushing their favourite content creator into an unexpected situation. IRL events also tend to get more hype for going against the grain, with creator-led events performing more strongly than ever.
This might have been MapleStory’s incentive for sponsoring Ludwig’s Creator Dodgeball event: A massively collaborative sporting tournament between influencers from various live-streaming platforms (and even podcasts). Although these kinds of events require more props, filming equipment, organization and so forth, this high investment pays off with the larger audience they can pull together. These events could get more ambitious in the future, now that non-gaming events have a proven track record of success.
The examples provided here are just a taste of some of the more interesting activations out there. The key to successful branded activations is two-way communication between influencers and sponsors: Streamers know their fanbase and what they’ll respond to, so see how you can tune your campaign ideas to their audience knowledge. Finding the middle ground between your needs as a sponsor and the streamer’s popular content will lead to better sentiment around your brand activation.
Keeping abreast of the latest creative activations is difficult without an expert to guide you and give advice. To discuss creative influencer marketing strategies for your brand or game, have a chat with us today:
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Indie publishers struggle to get noticed. While publishers behind AAA titles can generally rely on their prior reputation or bankable IP to attract the initial attention of players and media outlets, indie devs are simply happy to make it onto someone’s radar. For this reason, indie games depend heavily on word-of-mouth marketing, either via Steam reviews or online discourse like live-streaming chat rooms.
For this reason, indie publishers often focus on subgenres with high rates of engagement among fans to get that initial set of eyes on their game. Take simulator games for example, which have led to recent breakout hits like Supermarket Simulator and Fast Food Simulator. One of the biggest indie hits of last year was Balatro, earning both critical and commercial success and capitalizing on the demand for roguelike deckbuilders among indie game fans.
In this article, we’re looking at whether the demand for roguelike deck builders carries over onto live-streaming platforms, with a deeper dive into the particular success of Balatro.
Balatro’s initial debut back in February of 2024 was phenomenal. After a month of word spreading, Balatro reached a peak of 4.3M monthly hours watched in March – a strong showing for an original-IP card game. But what’s more fascinating is how the game managed to bounce back, currently experiencing a second wave of popularity where other titles might have trailed off and been forgotten. In November, Balatro’s viewership started increasing again before nearly tripling up to 2.4M hours watched in December.
Balatro owes this renewed interest to its nomination for Game of the Year, announced on the 18th of November 2024. A large contingent of gamers had missed the initial wave of hype in February as they played newly released AAA titles (February has become a favourite launch month for highly anticipated AAA titles after the holiday period, like the upcoming Monster Hunter: Wilds). Even we at Stream Hatchet missed our chance to cover it, despite having covered every other GOTY award nominee. This nomination brought Balatro back to public attention and set off another wave of new players on Steam, as noted by PlayTracker. Naturally, live-streaming viewership soon followed as players looked for optimal strats to “beat” the game.
Looking at the streamers who fuelled this resurgence reveals some well-known names. Just examining top streamers by hours watched over the past three months, we see streamers like PirateSoftware (178K), Emiru (87K), and Vinesauce (49K). It’s nice to see streamers supporting titles based on their critical acclaim, since they more often tend to cover new games to cash in on hype. Roffle was the true supporter though, capturing viewer attention through both his Twitch and YouTube Gaming channels to bring in 303K hours watched.
For fans of indie games, the breakout success of a roguelike deckbuilder may not be all that surprising. After all, there’s a massive number of these titles churned out every year – especially since the popularity of Slay the Spire when it released back in 2017. There are a couple dozen deck builders that even have highly positive review ratings on Steam. To see if this popularity tracked onto live streaming, we analyzed a sample of the top 20 roguelike deckbuilders on Steam by all-time peak concurrent user count. Thanks primarily to Balatro, 2024 was a great year for the genre on live streaming with a peak quarterly watch time of 11.7M hours watched. One would expect this newfound love for the genre to carry over into 2025.
However, for now, it’s still early days. The fact of the matter is that, as far as live streaming is concerned, interest essentially rests upon just three titles: Balatro, Slay the Spire, and Inscryption. The next roguelike deckbuilder down, Across the Obelisk, sits at just one-fifth the viewership of Inscryption for 2024. For such a saturated genre, it’s possible that three titles are all that’s needed to capture the fanbase’s attention. Additionally, since these games are so easy to update, there’s little incentive to create a sequel, and therefore little franchisability.
As stated before, however, this could be set to change. First of all, Slay the Spire 2 is one of the most hotly anticipated indie games of 2025. Additionally, exciting new spins on the formula have already debuted in January of 2025, like the Mahjong-inspired Autoenjo: Infinite Hands and the soulslike/deck building mashup game Death Howl. Those are just a few exciting roguelike deck builders set to debut. Stream Hatchet will be watching eagerly for the next game to innovate and perhaps further grow this subgenre’s popularity on live streaming.
To keep up to date with the latest popular gaming trends on live streaming, follow Stream Hatchet:
2024 Yearly live streaming trends
Discover the Live-Streaming Market Like Never Before
Our 2024 Yearly Report provides an in-depth analysis of the current state of the live-streaming industry. Dive into detailed insights on the rise and reach of streaming platforms, the performance of top game publisher IPs, trending media, and the creators shaping the future of entertainment. Whether you’re a brand strategist, marketer, or industry enthusiast, this report is your ultimate guide to understanding the trends and opportunities defining live-streaming in 2024.
Take a peek at our report.
Also inside: gaming vs. non-gaming, gaming genres, esports, creator-led events case study, DLC case study, mobile, vtubers and much more.
ANSWER ALL YOUR BURNING QUESTIONS
Smite entered the MOBA game later than many other titles, launching even a year after Dota refreshed the series with Dota 2. Despite this late start, the cross-mythology pantheon of gods captured gamers’ imaginations, and the game quickly became a favourite among players looking to avoid frustrating mechanics (like having to last-hit minions to get credit). A decade later, publisher Hi-Rez Studios have decided to unleash a sequel, Smite 2, which is a rare event for live service games like MOBAs.
In this article, we’re looking at the debut success of Smite 2 on live streaming to see how the online community have reacted to the new title, and taking a broader view of Smite among MOBAs.
Smite 2 launched in beta on the 14th of January, which for many of the game’s pre-existing players marked their transition to the new title. Live streaming audiences followed, and in its first week alone Smite 2 generated 1.5M hours watched. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly 3X the average daily viewership that Smite had been receiving throughout 2024 – a much needed shot in the arm. The average viewership of 44K suggests a healthy, sustained interest from fans of the series, but not as much traffic from curious onlookers from other MOBA games.
Smite 2’s launch success was partially helped by a well-run Twitch Drops campaign wherein viewers tuned in to participating streamers to collect in-game loot. Many of the top streamers of Smite 2 can attribute their viewership to their participation in this campaign, such as top streamer Weak3n who pulled in 126K hours watched. Every top streamer for the game came from Twitch, reinforcing the stereotype of MOBAs being popular on the platform. On a positive note, the lack of any single creator among this list propping up viewership shows that Smite 2 has a healthy, diverse fan base of dedicated players rather than transient bandwagoners.
Looking at the original game’s viewership on live streaming, it’s clear to see why the publishers felt the series needed a fresh start. Ever since the pandemic-era peak of 8M monthly hours watched back in January of 2021, viewership has steadily declined before finally settling at just 602K hours watched in December of 2024. In fairness, much of this decline came after Smite 2 was announced in January of 2024, with audiences migrating away as they waited for the new title to launch. Also, the peak of 8M came off the back of Smite’s annual January celebrations, which have consistently seen far higher-than-average monthly viewership for the past four years in a row thanks to new in-game loot.
Outside of these celebrations, Smite has relied upon esports events and creator collaborations for its viewership. The Smite Pro Leagues in 2019 and 2020 both saw huge jumps up to 5.2M and 6.2M hours watched, respectively. In fact Smite Pro League 2019 was particularly helped by the now-defunct live-streaming platform Mixer, which accounted for 62.6% of all viewership in April of 2019 (3.3M hours watched). When Mixer shut down, it seems that the platform-specific niche community of Smite lovers unfortunately also dissolved with it. There was still hope for a dedicated community of players to emerge however, with the OTK Smite Tournament in June of 2022 bringing in 7.2M hours watched.
If Hi-Rez Studios hopes to reinvigorate Smite 2’s live-streaming community, it will need to double down on these kinds of high-energy events and make new reasons for players to band together. While this is important for any live service game, it’s particularly important for MOBAs which already have several titles with entrenched audiences. Riot Games’ League of Legends, for example, brought in more watch time than every other MOBA combined in 2024 with 1.9B hours watched. Meanwhile, games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Brawl Stars carved out their niche by appealing to mobile MOBA players and more casual MOBA players, respectively.
There is some hope here, however. Every MOBA title saw increases in viewership last year compared to 2023, with the only exception being Smite (down by 46%) due to the aforementioned migration in anticipation of Smite 2’s release. This demonstrates that MOBAs are growing in popularity, which means new audiences and new opportunities to capitalize upon niches that still have substantial player counts. Smite 2 needs to make active strides in using this relaunch to show MOBA fans how it’s different from the competition in simple terms that can catch players losing interest with pre-existing titles.
Live streaming is the easiest way to broadcast out this message. Smite 2 could consider partnering with streamers of other MOBAs to get their message to the widest possible base, and entice players into the game with limited-time events. To stand out from the pack, Smite 2 needs to take radical action before other options like Deadlock launch in the near future and steal its thunder. Stream Hatchet will be watching as Smite 2 creatively engages with the live-streaming community in the coming months.
To keep up to date with the most hyped games on live streaming, follow Stream Hatchet:
At Stream Hatchet, we believe the best way to evolve is by listening to our customers. Over the past year, we’ve heard consistent feedback about the challenges you face when navigating data: Filters that were tricky to manage, key stats that weren’t as accessible as they should be, and tools that needed to work harder to save you time.
This feedback became the jumping-off point for our brand-new UI and UX enhancements – a redesign that simplifies navigation, accelerates data access, and delivers a more intuitive experience on the Stream Hatchet platform.
In this article we’re looking at what’s changed and, more importantly, how these improvements make your day-to-day work easier.
Filters have received a major upgrade. Instead of hunting for options, a sleek side view now appears whenever you click the Filters button, allowing you to refine your view instantly. Even better, we’ve introduced the Selected Filters element so you can see all active filters at a glance.
Need to reuse specific filters? You can now create and save your own filter sets in multiple sections across the app. This makes future reporting and analysis faster, more efficient, and tailored to your needs.
Your most important numbers now take center stage. We’ve moved key statistics to the top of the page, where they’re larger, clearer, and easier to see at a glance. This ensures you always have instant access to the metrics that matter most – no more hunting for stats buried in a corner.
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For customers focused on the Chinese market, we’ve introduced a dedicated Heat Channels Section. This tool highlights top-performing channels and engagement trends specific to China, helping you identify opportunities and stay ahead in this dynamic space.
Unlike platforms like Twitch, which measure viewership in “hours watched,” Chinese platforms use “heat score” as a metric. Because these metrics are not directly comparable, we’ve separated out the Chinese platforms into their own section. This ensures you can analyze Chinese market performance accurately and without confusion, whether you’re exploring creators or tracking regional insights.
This change makes targeted analysis simpler, faster, and more relevant for the unique characteristics of the Chinese streaming landscape.
Managing custom groups has never been easier. You can now:
These improvements ensure your workflows remain seamless, especially when analyzing creator or platform performance across your unique channel groups.
Adding to groups
Filtering by saved groups
Our new Universal Search scans across the entire app to find exactly what you’re looking for – whether it’s games, creators, tournaments, or more. Better yet, you can customize your search by filtering results to specific topics, ensuring you get the most relevant data quickly.
We’ve redesigned the Channel Searcher and Game Searcher tools to make them more powerful and visually impactful. A new brand side card provides a comprehensive view of each channel’s live-streaming and social reach, helping you evaluate their performance with ease. Overall improvements across these tools mean you can access data faster and consume insights in a more digestible format.
These changes mark the start of an exciting new chapter for Stream Hatchet. Throughout 2025, we’ll continue building on these improvements with even more updates, including:
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Many potential players form their first impression of a game based on its performance on live streaming. As streamers play the game, opinions spread around the content: Is it high quality? Does it live up to expectations? Does it have the breadth and depth of gameplay necessary to justify a purchase? If a game makes a splash on live streaming and catches the hearts of streamers, it gets played more and pushes more viewers into buying the game as well.
Although no game is guaranteed success on live streaming, looking at which titles have worked in the past might give us some insight into what games will hit big on live streaming in 2025. Brands and publishers alike should be aware of what genres, budgets, and launch strategies have worked in the recent past to determine where to place their advertising dollars. Understanding trends, like those covered in Stream Hatchet’s free Save Point 2024 report, is crucial for predicting what will be popular in the coming year.
In this article, we’re looking at the top game launches on live streaming from 2023 and 2024 to glean what trends are popular with online audiences and provide a yardstick against which to measure the success of upcoming game launches in 2025.
Looking at hours watched in the first 30 days of a game’s release provides perspective beyond Day 1 hype (which can be generated by marketing alone). In this respect, Diablo IV had by far the most positive initial reception with 168M hours watched in its first 30 days – 75M hours more than second-place Palworld. As the next entry in one of Blizzard’s most beloved franchises the game was expected to perform well, but a relentless advertising campaign helped to seal the deal (including hell-themed billboards that happened to coincide with the Canadian wildfires back in June of 2023). Another ARPG, Path of Exile 2, snagged third place with 92M hours watched (discussed more below).
Diablo IV also fit the bill of another trend among the top games on live streaming: Sequels. Understandably, viewers eagerly anticipate gameplay from the next entry in their favorite franchises, with games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (85.6M), EA Sports FC 25 (67.4M), and the World of Warcraft expansion The War Within (61.4M) all hitting big in their first month. The only two games in the top 10 to buck this trend were the aforementioned Palworld and Black Myth: Wukong, both from Chinese developers. However, it’s worth noting that in these cases, the games still derived much of their hype from comparisons to pre-existing IPs (Pokémon and Elden Ring respectively).
While AAA titles gauge what a successful game launch looks like on live streaming, it’s not exactly helpful for developers or publishers with original IP and tighter budgets who don’t intend on competing with the likes of Blizzard and EA. These smaller games instead hope to grow dramatically after release, using a few key streamers or opinion pieces to propel them from relative obscurity into the spotlight. For this reason, we looked at the biggest rank changes among the top 200 titles from their rank by hours watched in the first 7 days up to their rank in the first 30 days.
Looking at these games from a growth perspective, the entire line-up radically changes. Indie platformer/climber Only Up! managed to jump 178 positions into the #20 spot – a leap from 138K hours watched in its first 7 days up to 24.1M hours watched in its first 30 days. Only Up! represents a wave of games that have been extremely friendly towards streamers, in which a clear-cut challenge is presented that players can boast about accomplishing. Other games in this vein include Foddy-likes such as Chained Together and Heave Ho. Many of these games are also co-op which allows for streamers to collaborate and cross-pollinate their audiences, such as Lethal Company (jumped 137 ranks) or Pico Park 2 (jumped 85 ranks).
Unsurprisingly, almost all of these titles are indie games. Indie games rarely have the pre-release hype of a AAA title, and depend upon early adopters for visibility. Simulator games are a perfect example: A now saturated genre, rare examples like Supermarket Simulator (jumped 71 ranks) need a positive online streaming culture to stand out. Games that depend upon shock or innovation to generate word-of-mouth like psychological horror title MiSide (jumped 47 ranks) also see massive rises after their initial release. The only exceptions to this indie-only rule were Pokémon TCG Pocket (jumped 78 ranks) and Football Manager 24 (jumped 48 ranks) which were launched basically as side projects by their respective publishers but later gained acclaim.
For brands in particular, peak viewership can be a more important factor in determining where to allocate their marketing dollars. For a limited-time campaign, advertisers want to reach the largest audience possible. In this respect, Path of Exile 2 had by far the highest peak viewership in its first 30 days at 1.4M. This continues the trend discussed above, in which ARPGs seem to attract the most viewers to live streaming. ARPGs are fast-paced games with little (relevant) story, which keeps streamers constantly playing rather than wading through menus or cutscenes. Additionally, Path of Exile 2’s gameplay is incredibly complex so many players flock to live streaming to find out the optimal builds from experts in the genre. Both of these observations can be extended out to shooter games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (617K): All killer, no filler games with high skill ceilings to attract would-be pros.
Curiously, two survival titles also snuck into the top 10 here: Sons of the Forest and The Day Before with peak viewerships in their first 30 days of 909K and 645K, respectively. Unlike ARPGs and shooters, these games have long stretches of downtime in which no active conflict is happening. However, what they lack in action is made up for in tension: Viewers become increasingly invested in a streamer’s run as they escape death and accumulate resources. Additionally, both these games use horror aesthetics to their advantage: One of the most in-demand genres on live streaming as evidenced by the popularity of horror games from Resident Evil 4 to Dead by Daylight. In other words, it may be more the “horror” than the “survival” that contributed to these games’ overwhelming success.
While viewer interests are hard to pin down, it’s somewhat easier to secure streamer interest in one’s game and hope that viewer interest follows. Airtime hours in the first 30 days tend to favour big IP as streamers make a bet that viewers will tune in for heavily promoted games, like Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (4.4M airtime hours) and Diablo IV (3.6M airtime hours). Perhaps the best example of this philosophy is Hogwarts Legacy: A title that was swamped with controversy, yet had the backing of the Wizarding World IP to convince streamers it would bring in viewers.
From a less cynical viewpoint, it’s possible that the bulk of streamers simply love being in these worlds and choose to drop all other games to cover them. That logic would certainly explain why so many RPGs have high first 30 day airtimes, like Hogwarts Legacy (3.2M) and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (1.7M). In fact, almost all of the top 10 games by airtime hours are single player games with long campaigns. Even for streamers jumping on the bandwagon, they most likely get engrossed in the game and feel compelled to complete it (or are coerced to complete it by their audience who have become invested).
Combining together all of these observations may provide some insight into which games will perform well on live streaming over the next couple of years. Some are quite obvious: Viewers and streamers alike will always give new entries in big franchises a shot, as seen with Call of Duty, Diablo, and The Legend of Zelda. But the success of smaller titles from big IPs like Pokémon TCG Pocket suggests that it may be worth brands betting on spin-offs. While big entries like Monster Hunter: Wilds and Grand Theft Auto VI will no doubt perform incredibly well, spin-offs like Pokémon Legends: Z-A are also worth looking at.
Games featuring one or more of the highlighted popular genres are also likely to perform well over the next year, like horror games, ARPGs, shooters, simulators, Foddy-likes, and RPGs. Take, for example, The Blood of Dawnwalker which is an RPG with horror elements developed by ex-members of CD Projekt Red (The Witcher, Cyberpunk 2077). However, brands should get in quick before the genres become too saturated and viewer interest wanes, picking games that have had longer promotional periods and have built anticipation.
Among indie games, publishers should look at selling the social and challenging elements of their games. We saw how games that allowed collaboration brought streamers together (Lethal Company), and games with a single, high-intensity challenge pitted them against one another (Only Up!). Indie games are uniquely positioned to create cooperative campaigns that AAA games rarely invest in, with games like Split Fiction (from the developers of It Takes Two) and Stage Fright (from the developers of Overcooked) coming in 2025. Games that center more on a single challenge are harder to pin down, with so many being released and only a handful going viral in the same way Only Up! did.
It remains to be seen if these trends continue into 2025, or if viewer exhaustion wins out and viewers gravitate to alternative types of games for entertainment. Additionally, key tastemakers in gaming like zackrawrr and caseoh_ will no doubt determine which games smaller streamers pick up to play. Stream Hatchet will be watching for new trends as they emerge to discover them first.
To keep up to date with the latest big games on live-streaming platforms, follow Stream Hatchet:
Live streaming exists in an interesting space. While people turn to live streaming for entertainment, comfort, and a sense of stability, holidays can completely disrupt viewing habits. More availability could mean more free time for viewers to tune into their favourite streamers in much the same way as people play more games during the holidays. Alternatively, the abundance of free time and IRL activities could pull viewers away from live-streaming platforms. Previously, we explored a similar effect generated by different seasons where viewing patterns changed dramatically from summer to winter.
In this article, we’ll be looking at how live-streaming viewership changes during key holidays on the U.S. calendar, before delving deeper into the so-called “Q5” period around Christmas and New Year’s for 2024 to discover what events still have the necessary pull to keep viewers online.
Looking back over the past four years in holidays, one obvious trend emerges: Almost every single holiday has a below average viewership on live streaming for its respective year. Christmas is the worst affected, having 24.1% less viewership than an average day in 2024. The only exception to this rule seems to be Easter Sunday, which has consistently outperformed the average day in its respective year and pulled in an average minute audience (AMA) 15.9% higher than average in 2024. In fact, Easter Sunday even pulls in a higher AMA than a typical Sunday each year (except 2022), with 4.3% higher AMA in 2024.
This could be set to change, however, with another holiday quickly gaining popularity among the live-streaming community: Thanksgiving. In 2024, Thanksgiving managed to pull in a 4.4% higher AMA than the typical day – the first time it’s exceeded the average. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas saw a massive trend upwards this year, most likely helped by key live-streaming events like Kai Cenat’s Mafiathon 2. It’s possible that winter holidays are better suited to these kinds of indoorsy activities than summer holidays like the 4th of July.
In other industries, the time surrounding Christmas and New Year’s is often treated separately from Q4 due to shifting consumer priorities, labelled Quarter 5 (Q5) instead. The exact dates differ depending on the industry, but for the purposes of our discussion here, we’re treating the fortnight from the 23rd of December 2024 to the 5th of January 2025 as Q5 in live streaming. Heading into Q5, the assumption is that the viewers spend more time on IRL family events and vacations, leading them away from live-streaming platforms. This is backed up by the data: In Q5 2024, hours watched across all platforms decreased by 6.6% compared to the average fortnight in 2024.
However, that isn’t the end of the story. Looking instead at streamer habits, it turns out that airtime hours actually increased by 8.2% compared to the average fortnight in 2024. In other words, streamers spent more time online during the holiday period despite presumably knowing that viewers aren’t as tuned in. There’s an apparent gap here between streamers having more time to pursue their hobby and viewers having other activities distracting them in Q5. While there are less viewers, the ones still tuning in are more likely to be engaged/loyal. This makes streaming during this time incredibly important for creating positive sentiment among one’s fanbase – especially for smaller streamers who might earn more subs during this time.
For brands looking to partner with streamers during this less predictable time of the year, it’s worth understanding which kinds of events have enough pull to keep viewers engaged during the holidays. In Q5 2024, the most popular event was RTA in Japan, a biannual speedrunning event that brought in 3.5M hours watched with its top session. No doubt the mostly non-U.S. audience for the event contributed to its ability to weather the expected drop in viewership over Christmas. A lot of other non-U.S. streamers rose to prominence in this time, like German streamer MontanaBlack88 and VooDooSh with 2.6M and 884K hours watched on their top streams, respectively.
Notably, Kai Cenat actually had the most watched session across all of Q5 thanks to his Fortnite collab with IShowSpeed, which brought in 4.7M hours watched. The two biggest streamers of 2024 managed to capitalize on the downtime between Christmas and New Year’s Day while their schedules were relatively free. Other Western streamers piggybacked off the recent popularity of Twitch subathon events, with sodapoppin and Quin69 both using their free holiday time on marathon streams. Celebrities continued to be popular as well, with Drake inviting Adin Ross onto his Kick channel for 883K hours watched (although there is some ongoing controversy regarding Drake’s channel’s status).
With Thanksgiving and Christmas viewership up this year, it’s possible more people are turning to live streaming during the colder holidays. Stream Hatchet will be watching to see if this trend continues, but in the meantime it’s worth brands thinking about how they can use this downtime in their own schedules to stand out and reach new audiences in the lead up to Q5 2025.
To keep up to date with the latest industry-wide trends on live streaming, follow Stream Hatchet:
Roblox was among the many socially-oriented apps and games boosted by the COVID pandemic. But while games like Animal Crossing, Second Life, and VRChat all saw their user bases subside once restrictions lifted, Roblox continued to grow in a linear fashion. Now at 380M monthly users, Roblox is more popular than ever. In fact, it’s estimated to be played more than the entire AAA gaming space combined and its player base is growing by roughly 20% every year.
Brands have taken notice, and are now hoping to capitalize on the unique marketing opportunities presented by an interactive metaverse like Roblox. But while modern brands have come to grips with the concept of influencer marketing and streamers, interactive brand activations still feel relatively hard to decipher. Additionally, combining interactive and non-interactive brand strategies in a complementary fashion is rarely talked about, as though each of these advertising avenues exist completely independently from one another.
In this article, we’re examining how Roblox’s massive player base engages with live-streaming platforms, and how the popularity of different Roblox “experiences” (in-platform games) differs between the two avenues. Finally, we look at how combined interactive and non-interactive marketing strategies (via Roblox and live streaming, respectively) may create better brand activations than either avenue alone.
Before jumping into marketing strategies, it’s worth reiterating the popularity of Roblox on live streaming to remind brands of its influence. After a massive pandemic-era surge up to 36.2M hours watched per quarter, Roblox viewership had been floating around 25M hours watched. However, off the back of the success of the Dress To Impress experience last year, Roblox viewership hit a new peak quarterly viewership of 57.1M hours watched in Q3 2024. This surge in live-streaming interest coincided with a new peak Daily Active User (DAU) count of 88.1M Roblox players in the same quarter.
While these viewing numbers are strong, they don’t nearly match up to Roblox’s massive player base. For H2 2024, Roblox was the 27th most watched “game” on live-streaming platforms with 103.9M hours watched. But the top 12 games all hit above 200M hours watched, and even Minecraft, a similarly creative sandbox experience, hit 5th position with 469.2M hours watched.
A couple of factors might explain the disconnect between Roblox’s player base and its live-streaming performance. Firstly, 41% of Roblox users are under the age of 14 while Twitch requires users to be at least 13 years old (hence why most Roblox content is on YouTube). Secondly, Roblox is F2P and is a platform in and of itself. Users may feel that instead of watching streamers engage with experiences, they could simply jump on the platform and start playing. Regardless, players seem to interact with both platforms as seen by the surge in viewership on Twitch when the Nikeland experience launched in November 2021.
In mid-2023, there were an estimated 40M Roblox experiences on the platform with a further 15K experiences being created every single day. Naturally, only a dozen or so of these experiences are popular at any time. However, by looking at the top experiences of all time (as provided by Statista) and their recent popularity on live-streaming platforms, we can gain some insight into how experience popularity translates into viewership.
A Roblox experience being popular doesn’t guarantee viewership on live streaming. The most popular Roblox experience of all time is Brookhaven RP with 58.6B visits, yet the experience generated just 2.1M hours watched in the past two years. Conversely, BedWars has almost one-sixth of the all-time visits, yet generated ~175% of Brookhaven RP’s viewership. By far the most watched experience is Blox Fruits, a One Piece-inspired battle simulator with 18.8M hours watched over the past two years.
Instead of looking at all-time visits as a marker of an experience’s popularity on live streaming, a better indicator of success is its social capability. Roblox themselves report that the most popular emerging genre is the so-called “co-opetition” genre in which people create content for one another to use, while simultaneously competing to have the best content. The recent hit Dress To Impress, played by Caseoh_ and Madison Beer among many others, is a perfect example, drawing in viewers with fashion creations that express the creators’ personal style. For this reason, many brands are creating licensing deals with Roblox to capture this social chatter, like the NFL World Football experience which brings American Football to young Roblox players.
Given the popularity of fashion experiences on Roblox, it’s no surprise that apparel companies are eager to partner with the platform. Apart from the aforementioned Nike partnership, brands from Gucci to L’Oreal to Supreme all have in-game items for players to purchase with the platform’s currency: Robux. To older readers this might be surprising, but style is incredibly important to Gen Z. In fact, 56% of Gen Z say that styling their digital avatar is more important to them than their IRL style (at least according to Roblox’s own studies on the subject).
Despite this push from fashion companies, Roblox’s live-streaming audience has a different focus. Looking at a three-month sample of chat mentions on Roblox Twitch streams, tech brands and apps generate the most chatter including Acer with 147K chat mentions and Uber with 36K chat mentions. For users engaged with the metaverse, discussion around tech and services that make virtual life more convenient seems appropriate.
Fashion and tech are just a small slice of advertising on Roblox. Stores like Walmart and Shopify are even enabling purchases of real, deliverable products through the Roblox virtual store. Roblox’s economy is a beast unto itself which is far too complex to fully explore here, but suffice to say that they’ve even implemented a feature similar to Google’s sponsored search function to enable brands to compete with their wallets on the platform.
A few months ago, Naavik put out a fantastic podcast exploring some of the ways brands are getting in on Roblox’s popularity. Before we look at how live streaming marketing can synergize with Roblox marketing, it’s worth taking a quick review of the latter’s advantages:
Note that brands advertising through Roblox are generally aiming to reach Gen Z consumers. With the average Gen Z individual spending 156 minutes on Roblox every day, advertising through their platform in some fashion is virtually mandatory for any youth-oriented brand. But there are still gaps in Roblox’s marketing possibilities: How can live streaming be used to fill these gaps AND create cross-platform campaigns with greater effectiveness?
As much as Roblox’s interactive environment provides more cutting-edge opportunities for innovation, live streaming offers many traditional advantages to brands that a game simply can’t guarantee. Given that many current CEOs are Gen X, they may not be comfortable using Roblox as their primary advertising route since they didn’t grow up with advertising in games. As a result, Roblox marketing budgets are often limited to an experimental pool of marketing dollars. Live streaming is therefore a safer alternative for non-experimental brands, creating a bridge between traditional brands and gamers.
Even for more experimental brands, live streaming offers unique advantages. Roblox developers will often speak about the power of 3D environments in creating natural brand placement opportunities. But these entail the same drawbacks as real-life advertisements: Players can simply ignore an ad or turn away from it. Live streaming, on the other hand, has closer equivalencies with TV advertising: Brand placements occur from a fixed perspective, making them easier to stage and guaranteeing that any viewers who are watching will see it. Additionally, platforms like Twitch are increasingly making integrations that allow viewers to interact with streams themselves – a kind of middle ground between live streaming and interactive environments that preserves fixed perspective.
Live streaming can be used in an additive capacity to Roblox marketing. As noted earlier, a Roblox experience’s popularity doesn’t always translate to live streaming and vice versa. Trying to reach the specific demographic of a certain experience might be easier on live streaming than native advertising through the platform in cases where the experience is highly watched online (e.g. Blox Fruits). Brands could even partner with creators who cover those specific experiences for unique influencer marketing opportunities. Creator demographics shed light on which experiences are worth investing marketing dollars into – discoverable via tools like Stream Hatchet’s own AI Influencer Discovery Program.
Combining live streaming and Roblox marketing is the most sure-fire strategy for reaching a brand’s intended audience. One method can reuse the money invested in creating assets for the other method. For example, a brand creating its own Roblox experience (e.g. Nikeland) can partner with live streamers to get the word out and attract players. As brands become more comfortable with both Roblox and live streaming marketing, exciting new opportunities to innovate in this space with next-generation marketing campaigns will open up.
To stay aware of emerging marketing trends on live-streaming platforms, follow Stream Hatchet:
The esports industry continues to grow in scope, reaching new audiences and adopting novel strategies to entertain fans. 2024 was a massive year for esports culture, with a number of events on a global scale. Now that the year is coming to a close, it’s worth taking a look at some of the strategies that led to esports success in 2024, as these will most likely be evolving trends in 2025.
The data presented here is just a small taste of our look back at the past year on live-streaming platforms: Save Point 2024. To find out more about trends in other live-streaming areas like top streamers, hit games, and Twitch-integrated success stories, check out the full Save Point 2024 recap for free now:
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The crowning jewel of esports events in 2024 was the Esports World Cup, a bid by Saudi Arabia to become the centre of global esports events with a massive 22 tournaments over six weeks. This effort obviously paid off, with Saudi Arabia announced to be hosting the inaugural Olympic Esports Games in 2025. Back on the Esports World Cup, the event generated 103M hours watched across its entire span with a peak viewership of 2.8M. The combination of high production value spectacle, fan-favorite teams and a wide array of games clearly brought in hype for the event.
The most interesting aspect of the event to us is the use of multiple games in one centralized event. Apart from practical advantages like combining logistics and schedules, using multiple games is a great way to collaborate and cross-pollinate different audiences. Oddly, this is relatively rare in the esports scene, perhaps due to the difficulty of coordinating publishers across many different games. Most existing examples come from the Fighting game genre, one of the earliest genres to get the esports treatment. EVO and EVO Japan are events featuring games from massive franchises like Tekken and Street Fighter all in one packed weekend. Alternatively, games made by the same publisher are also featured in single events such as the Pokémon World Championships and Supercell’s SuperFest. No doubt we’ll see more games joining forces to attract a crowd in the coming year.
Another key ingredient in the Esports World Cup’s success was the overwhelming popularity of mobile game esports. In fact, mobile esports accounted for 44% of the Esports World Cup’s total viewership even though only 4 of the 22 tournaments were mobile! In fairness, this was largely thanks to Mobile Legends: Bang Bang which singlehandedly brought in 2.3M hours watched.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg, however. Mobile esports watch time jumped by a massive 41% from 2023 to 2024, showing how rapidly the space is expanding. Keep in mind that’s just esports viewership, not casual mobile game streaming. Again, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is the big winner with 340M hours watched in 2024 (up 17M hours watched from last year). Wholly mobile esports tournaments are also becoming feasible, like the aforementioned Supercell SuperFest which thrived off the popularity of Brawl Stars esports.
So why is mobile viewership growing so much? The short answer seems to be accessibility. While AAA games like Overwatch or Call of Duty require high-end PCs and quality peripherals to reach a competitive level (or even run, in some cases), mobile games remove this barrier by using hardware that more people around the world have consistent access to. No doubt this has helped the proliferation of mobile game interest, and consequently mobile esports interest. This partners well with the growing popularity of live streaming: Another activity which circumvents the needs for fancy tech for viewers who don’t have access to expensive games.
While it’s easy to be enchanted by the pageantry of big esports events, most fans are tuning in for one thing: Their favourite streaming personalities. Esports events provide content for streamers to engage with, whether that be as competitors themselves, commentators providing expert analysis, or even as fellow fans alongside their audience barracking for a certain team to take home the trophy.
As a result, it’s no wonder that many fans choose to watch their favourite streamer’s coverage of said events, known as co-streaming, rather than watching the official streaming channel. In 2024, co-streaming accounted for 44% of all esports viewership – that’s 1.2B hours watched! Some of the most popular co-streamers included Ibai, Gaules, and Caedrel who brought in 77M, 52M, and 47M hours watched of esports co-streaming viewership in 2024, respectively.
Event organizers have realised how crucial it is to attach well-known personalities to their events if they want to attract viewers. Back in February, Ubisoft paid Jynxzi to co-stream the R6 Invitational (Rainbow Six Siege), and his viewership alone amounted to 1.1M hours watched. Other events put the star personality front and centre, relying almost wholly on their name to bring in viewers. One of the strongest examples from this past year would be the Twitch Rivals: Hunt & Run w/ IlloJuan, which had 98.4% of its entire viewership come from co-streaming.
The thing is, it’s not just esports event organizers that have realized the power of big streamers in drawing an audience. Creators themselves have clocked this as well, leading to a proliferation of creator-led events for which the main attraction is the headlining streaming star themselves.
The most famous example of these types of events are creator brawls: Events in which streamers get in the ring and let their fists do the talking. The most popular event globally of this kind is Ibai’s annual La Velada del Año event, the fourth edition of which brought in a peak viewership of 3.8M – that’s 1M higher than the Esports World cup! A series of successful copycat events have popped up from the U.S. to Latin America, such as WestCOL’s Stream Fighters event which had a peak viewership of 1.4M for its third edition this year.
Of course, these creator-led events also tie back into the world of competitive gaming, making them potential rivals to major esports tournaments. Take, for example, Junichi Kato’s Hyper Game Tournament which brought together some of the biggest Japanese streamers and Fighting game players for a combined watch time of 3.8M hours watched. Rubius also joined the fun here, with the All Stars Rubius Cup for Fortnite hitting a peak viewership of 385K. It feels like only a matter of time before there are fully competitive esports-style tournaments which are headlined by streaming personalities.
Heading into 2025 we expect these trends to only grow stronger. Relying on streaming personalities to draw in new fans has been integral to modern marketing for several years now, and esports tournaments will likely be no different. While the mobile esports scene seems more streamer-agnostic at the moment, that may change if a breakout star with an engaging personality breaks out and becomes an idol for aspiring mobile esports players. Stream Hatchet will be watching as exciting developments unfold in 2025.
If you’d like to scroll through some of the biggest trends in live streaming of the past year over your holiday break, like new live-streaming platforms and non-gaming topics, check out Save Point 2024 for free now:
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The past decade has been ruled by Marvel mania, with superheroes flooding the realms of film, TV, toys, merchandise, and IRL events. Video games have dabbled in superhero IP since the medium’s origins, but until now there have been few Marvel-backed video games that have found success on live-streaming platforms.
Game publisher NetEase hoped to change this with the release of Marvel Rivals: A PVP Hero Shooter in the style of Overwatch and Concord. In August, we looked at the pre-release hype for Marvel Rivals based on its Twitch Drops campaigns. Now that the game is out, it’s time to check out its performance on live streaming. In this article, we’re taking a look at Marvel Rivals’ debut performance, how it stacks up against other Hero Shooters, and how the live-streaming community has engaged with the new title.
The game had an incredible debut performance. In its first week alone, Marvel Rivals generated 20M hours watched with a peak viewership of 301K. This performance matches up with the number of players who jumped on to try out the F2P title. The initial concurrent player count hit 444K on Steam alone, and on the 17th of December Marvel Rivals’ official X account announced that 20M players had already signed up. At the time of writing, the game even has an 80% positive rating on Steam – an incredible feat for a big-IP live service game in just its first month.
Marvel Rivals is currently in “Season 0”, still getting everything right before the official first season kicks off in January. But with 33 playable heroes and multiple game modes, there’s been plenty to attract players and viewers alike. A key part of Marvel Rivals’ appeal is the prevailing sentiment that the game is a great option for Overwatch fans who feel disenchanted with the direction Overwatch 2 took compared to the series’ roots. No doubt this has helped the game tap into a pre-existing community of Hero Shooter fans and build momentum quickly.
Among the streamers immediately taking to the game, one stood out. Necros brought in 3.3M hours watched of Marvel Rivals content in its opening week alone – 1/6th of the game’s entire viewership over that period! Second place Flats didn’t even come close to this total with just 717K hours watched. Necros’ success was largely due to his incredibly high airtime of 168 hours, proving his dedication to the cause with a higher airtime than any other streamer in the top 50. Other big name streamers also checked out Marvel Rivals, including xQc (276K) and TimTheTatman (442K).
Twitch chat provides great insight into which characters are stirring up the most discourse online. Across Marvel Rivals streams, Storm was the most mentioned character with 279K chat mentions in the game’s debut week. However, Storm is a commonly used word and so this figure may be inflated (see here for more detail). The most popular characters are more likely from the Thor and Spider-Man franchises, with Thor himself having 219K chat mentions and Venom having 139K chat mentions. Characters who are already emerging as S-Tier choices for competitive play also ranked highly, such as Hela (139K) and Mantis (64K).
Of course given their presence in the Marvel films and other media, many classic heroes like Hulk (104K) and Iron Man (48K) also had high chat mentions. What’s more exciting is how lesser-known characters have taken the spotlight since Marvel Rivals’ release, such as Peni Parker and Adam Warlock, whose chat mentions jumped by 24.3x and 23.1x, respectively. The other big winner in this respect was oddball inclusion Jeff the Land Shark with a 22.4x jump in chat mentions, creating drama as one of the more contentious inclusions in the game over other beloved Marvel characters.
An essential part of any live service game launch is a spectacular Twitch Drops event which rallies the community together via live streaming. Marvel Rivals is no exception, currently hosting a month-long Twitch Drops event that runs throughout Season 0 and features four rewards based on how long viewers tune in to Twitch Drops-enabled streams (listed here). Almost all of the aforementioned streamers have participated in this event, including Necros with four Twitch Drops-enabled streams.
By looking at the watchtime of Unique Registered Viewers (URVs) tuning in to Twitch Drops-enabled streams, we can determine the proportion of Marvel Rivals fans fully engaging with the event. Among the 4.9M URVs who tuned into Twitch-Drops enabled streams, just 13.4% (664K) watched for long enough in the game’s debut week to (potentially) obtain every Twitch Drops reward. With the event still running, this number will of course likely rise in the coming days. Still, 13.4% of all URVs engaging with four hours or more of Marvel Rivals content on Twitch is an impressive figure!
On the flip side, 62% of URVs didn’t even watch long enough to be able to claim a single Twitch drops reward. This majority of the group may be composed of many different demographics. Firstly, fans of streamers who participated in the event may not like Marvel Rivals, and opted not to watch this content. Secondly, there may be Marvel Rivals players who wanted the Drops, but don’t enjoy live streaming enough to participate. Lastly, there are curious onlookers considering buying Marvel Rivals who tried watching the game, but lost interest. Of these, NetEase would want to attract potential new players from among the first and third groups in particular.
Marvel Rivals’ direct competition comes from other live service Hero Shooters, due to the strong similarity in gameplay and the general “stickiness” of these titles (with fans rarely migrating from their staple live service game to a new title). Looking at historical peak viewerships for Hero Shooters, Marvel Rivals comes in 6th with its peak of 301K viewers. This is a strong performance for such a packed genre featuring heavyweights such as Riot’s VALORANT (3.1M) and Blizzard’s Overwatch (1.8M). Given more time to build a fanbase and begin hosting esports events, Marvel Rivals could easily rank among these other titles in the future.
But perhaps Marvel Rivals should be thinking more about other new entrants to the scene which may shake up the landscape completely. Upcoming Hero Shooters like Valve’s Deadlock (223K) and Theorycraft Games’ SUPERVIVE (214K) are already pulling in massive peak viewerships from demos and beta builds alone. Additionally, these games are innovating within the genre which means more potential to take over as tastemakers from the older precedent set by Overwatch.
Longevity is the key to success with live service games. With the massive budget, deep backlog of IP, and positive initial reception, Marvel Rivals could go the distance – but it needs to continue to innovate and define itself beyond comparisons to Overwatch. Only by proving itself as a fantastic game irrespective of its ties to Marvel will Marvel Rivals endure into the future. Stream Hatchet will be watching as contenders in the Hero Shooter space emerge in 2025.
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Path of Exile is a game for hardcore action RPG (ARPG) fans, allowing players to dissect and analyse every possible skill, attribute, and piece of equipment to min-max their characters and turn hordes of monsters into mince meat in mere seconds. This level of depth, perhaps best embodied by the game’s absurdly intricate Atlas skill tree, has led many players to call Path of Exile the “Diablo killer”. So when developer Grinding Gear Games announced a sequel, Path of Exile 2, the hype was immense.
Path of Exile 2 released in early access on the 6th of December, but many critics agree the game is basically “early access” in name alone. With three out of a total six planned acts included, not to mention 50 out of 100 anticipated bosses, the game has already given players plenty to sink their teeth into. In this article, we’re looking at the debut performance of Path of Exile 2 on live streaming, and seeing whether or not it really could overthrow Diablo IV in the coming years.
Thanks to the hype, the sequel was an immediate success upon its release. In its debut week, Path of Exile 2 generated 44M hours watched with an incredible peak viewership of 1.4M – the kind of reception normally only seen by the biggest esports events and live-streaming collaborations. This high turnout makes sense considering that the game had already seen 1M early access redemptions by the 6th of December; with so many active players, people were bound to jump online to learn new strategies.
Some of the changes in Path of Exile 2 compared to its predecessor may seem small, but have completely altered the dynamic of the game in a way that players are loving. For example, the inclusion of a dodge roll and more animation commitment to attacks has made the gameplay more tactical and deliberate, certainly more so than the typical ARPG. In this sense, Path of Exile 2 has adopted a gameplay style common among games that are popular on live-streaming platforms like Elden Ring and Monster Hunter: World. More strategy means more room for optimization means more live-streaming viewership to find the best builds and tactics.
Naturally, a number of popular streamers played Path of Exile 2 upon release, like zackrawrr and 풍월량 who pulled in 2.4M and 587K hours watched, respectively. But in a rare feat, Quin69 actually managed to beat zackrawrr with 2.5M hours watched in Path of Exile 2’s first week. Many popular Diablo IV streamers of course had to give the new game a shot, with streamers like HandOfBlood bringing in 1.1M hours watched. The top streamers were overwhelmingly Twitch-based, most likely due to the hardcore reputation of the ARPG genre.
Although “Action RPGs” or “ARPGs” can technically refer to any RPG that uses action-based combat rather than another system (like turn-based combat), the term is usually reserved for isometric ARPGs similar to Diablo. Among games of this ilk, Path of Exile is the only game to hold a candle to Diablo, with the original game pulling in 187M hours watched over the past two years compared to 329M hours watched for Diablo IV (which released partway through 2023). Last Epoch, which was released in February of 2024, performed admirably with 30M hours watched, while lesser known titles for genre enthusiasts like Grim Dawn and Titan Quest fall below demand for the older Diablo titles Diablo III and Diablo II.
Note, however, that Path of Exile 2 has, in just one week, already reached over 13% of Diablo IV’s viewership since release. Despite strong similarities in their aesthetics and core gameplay loops, there are a few key differences between Path of Exile and Diablo as series that may explain why the former is well-suited to live streaming. Firstly, Path of Exile’s continuous output of new content and deep end game have allowed streamers to keep playing long after release. Secondly, Path of Exile is notoriously punishing on beginners, compared to Diablo’s more casual audience, with build guides being almost mandatory. While this could kill interest in a weaker game, Path of Exile is so well-executed that beginners instead turn to live-streaming to learn how to play, which drives up viewership and online discourse.
As early access has become the de facto release method for many developers (particularly indie developers looking to nurture an audience prior to full release), the number of quality early access titles with positive initial receptions has soared. The big success story of 2024 still goes right back to February, with the release of the mega-popular (and slightly controversial) Palworld which generated 50M hours watched in its first week. Path of Exile 2 is a sequel, but its ability to be the only other early access title with a comparable reception speaks volumes about how excited the community is for this game.
Other notable early access titles include franchise games like Hades II and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor with 4.6M and 3.8M hours watched, respectively. But the title grabbing many people’s attention is SUPERVIVE, which had an incredibly popular demo back during October’s Steam Next Fest and has since generated 3.5M hours watched in early access. Developed by Theorycraft Studios, a team composed of ex-League of Legends employees, and with an ambitious mix of MOBA, Battle Royale, and Hero Shooter gameplay, SUPERVIVE is certain to spark online viewership upon full release.
For Path of Exile 2, a full release date hasn’t as yet been announced. However, fans speculate the game will most likely release in around a year’s time, especially considering how polished the early access build is. ARPG fans also have Titan Quest 2 to look forward to, releasing this winter. Stream Hatchet will be watching as the ARPG genre continues to gain new fans on live streaming.
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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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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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Now entering its fourth edition, The Streamer Awards has established itself as the definitive ceremony for spotlighting excellence in the live-streaming industry. With the first event being run back in March of 2022 by creator QTCinderella, The Streamer Awards now has the clout to draw in nominations from the entire live-streaming audience and provide a more accurate, more comprehensive depiction of the personalities shaping the modern streaming landscape. With winners being determined by 70% popular vote, The Streamer Awards is one of the few creative arts ceremonies that acknowledges fan opinions of worthy winners.
This year’s event on the 7th of December is being produced in partnership with streamer-led creative agency Offbrand and features five new categories for nomination: Best MOBA Streamer, Best Sports Streamer, Best Fortnite Streamer (sponsored by Fortnite itself), Best Streamed Collab, and Best Marathon Stream. These last two categories are of particular interest, reflecting trends in how the biggest events on live-streaming are taking shape in 2024 and beyond.
In this article, we’re looking at a few of the categories to provide an insight into which streamers dominated 2024, which new streamers are likely to capture public attention in 2025, and which events are drawing viewers onto live-streaming platforms.
Streamer of the Year is perhaps the most vague award up for grabs at The Streamer Awards, being so all-encompassing as to be virtually impossible to objectively decide. The Streamer Awards state that voting is simply “based on which streamer [the voter] finds most entertaining to watch in the category”. Given this vagueness and the weighting of the popular vote, one streamer stands out as the frontrunner in this group.
Kai Cenat is by far the favourite to win Streamer of the Year with an overwhelming 184.8M hours watched from January to November of 2024. This puts him 110M hours watched ahead of the next most viewed competitor in the category, League of Legends esports pro player Caedrel with 74.5M hours watched. Kai Cenat has won the award for the past two events, so his continued dominance would be par for the course. With the domination of his Elden Ring marathons earlier in the year and his recently completed Mafiathon 2 subathon event, his victory seems like a done deal.
There is some room for speculation, though. Perhaps the most viable challenger for the crown is IShowSpeed who saw phenomenal growth this year. In fact, IShowSpeed far outstripped Kai Cenat in terms of peak viewership, with the former hitting a peak of 1M viewers for his Indonesia travel stream compared to the latter’s peak of 673K. This newcomer mentality may be enough to drum up votes from supporters looking to disrupt the status quo. Two of the other nominees also had big wins this year, with PirateSoftware making a name for himself with his record-breaking Twitch Hype Train and Caedrel expanding his influence in esports with the creation of a new team, Los Ratones.
The real excitement for many fans comes from some of the less easily determined categories featuring newcomers to the scene; specifically, The Rising Star Award and The Best Breakout Streamer Award. Fans of streamers in these categories are passionate devotees who have helped propel their favourite creators to stardom over the course of 2024 – which they hope will translate to votes.
The rising star with the biggest growth is Arky, seeing a 128x increase in viewership from just 2.2K monthly hours watched in January up to 283K in November. Arky creates IRL content in the style of FaZe Clan, although he’s not technically an official member of their main crew (yet, at least). His rise to fame has no doubt stemmed from collaborations with both FaZe Clan’s main crew and other big name streamers. There’s an unmistakable vulnerability to his content which has nurtured a loyal fanbase, such as the outpouring of support from fans after receiving some bad personal news. People looking to go from small time to big time could do worse than studying Arky’s streaming strategy.
The other streamers in this category may be more well-known from a couple of popular events (covered in more detail below), such as Apex Legends streamer Misterarther (49x growth) and Just Chatting streamer Cinna (1.9x growth). Only a couple of the nominated streamers saw declines in viewership (not shown above) such as rayasianboy; however, his drop in viewership for November can be attributed to his month-long collaboration with Kai Cenat for Mafiathon 2. No doubt this kind of exposure will pay dividends when he returns to streaming on his own channel.
One of the most exciting categories to look at is the League of their Own Award which recognizes streamers creating unique types of content. While some might feel these alternative streamers rely on gimmicks, they’re proving which niche content types are viable for commanding an audience. By far the most attention-grabbing nominee in this category is Perrikaryal, who uses a series of electrodes to record her EEG signals (brainwaves) and play through popular games with her mind alone. This “hands-off” approach to gaming combined with her fun personality makes for cutting-edge Let’s Play content. PirateSoftware and RDCGaming also innovate with gaming content, with the former using his expertise as an indie game dev to provide insights into game design, while the latter features a crew of personalities playing games together.
A few categories look to highlight single events that have captured public interest in the live-streaming sphere during 2024, whether that be due to mass viewership or innovative content types. We’ve explored 2024’s marathon and subathon streams extensively in the past, so here we’re looking at collaborations and other events.
The Best Streamed Collab Award looks to highlight collaborations that were unusual or extended the reach of streaming beyond just streamers alone. Two of the nominees here show how crucial live streaming was in relation to the U.S. election and political coverage: Adin Ross’s collaboration with Donald Trump on Kick, and Former Congressman George Santos’ feature on ConnorEatsPants’ Fortnite Friday stream. Politicians leveraged live streaming to reach younger voters, while streamers saw this as an opportunity to comment on the perceived absurdity of politics in 2024. George Santos’ appearance as an ousted Congressman during chaotic Fortnite gameplay took a very different tone to Adin Ross’ highly structured, single-hour interview with president-elect Trump.
Looking at The Best Streamed Event category reveals four massive collaborations between well-known streamers. Rising star Misterarther got a massive boost from his collaboration with ExtraEmily, nmplol, and fanfan on their Road Trip to TwitchCon stream, bringing in a peak viewership of 39K. But it was CDawgVA’s Cyclethon 3 which brought in the highest peak viewership of 59K among the nominees. CDawgVA has emerged as the preeminent English-speaking streamer based in Japan, hosting unique perspectives on niche Japanese culture with Japanese and Western internet personalities. Cyclethon 3 was a cycling journey through Japan as a fundraiser for the Immune Deficiency Foundation (IDF). By combining healthy content, a righteous cause, and a number of famous cameos (including PewDiePie and Ironmouse), CDawgVA created a wholesome event that the entire live-streaming audience could enjoy.
Across the 27 categories up for grabs, one group has managed to assert themselves: FaZe Clan. With nominees in 7 categories (8 if you count Arky as being FaZe-affiliated), FaZe Clan have proven that they are a force to be reckoned with. Since FaZe Clan’s new lineup took over earlier this year, they have seen a collective jump in viewership which culminated in SUBtember’s hugely popular subathon event.
Individually, a few members stood out with their nominations at The Streamer Awards. Plaqueboymax brought in 25.6M hours watched from January to November 2024 with his musical content, earning him a nomination in The Best Creative Arts Streamer category and the highest viewership among nominated FaZe Clan members. JasontheWeen came in just behind plaqueboymax with 24.9M hours watched, but showed off an incredible chat engagement of 43.1M messages. This love for jasontheween among his fans no doubt explains his nominations for both Best Breakout Streamer and Best Just Chatting Streamer. Lacy also deserves a special mention here, generating a massive 3M Twitch Bits over the same time period.
From this glance at The Streamer Awards, it’s clear that groups of streamers go much further than individuals trying to make it on their own. Whether it be smaller streamers trying to find an audience, or established streamers aiming to break records, collaboration is essential for live-streaming success across both gaming and non-gaming content. On the topic of gaming, Stream Hatchet will be looking in more detail at the top games on live streaming throughout 2024 next week when we cover The Game Awards.
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Among the top live-streaming platforms, BIGO LIVE is relatively unassuming. Unlike platforms like Kick, which made a splash by rejecting the norms set by Twitch, or Steam, which built upon its already-established game marketplace, BIGO LIVE doesn’t appear to have any single hook to draw in viewers. Despite this, the platform has gradually innovated and worked its way up to being the 7th most popular live-streaming platform worldwide in Q3 2024.
Given that we began tracking BIGO LIVE viewership on the 18th of March 2024, it’s time to delve into this data and see what makes the platform so special. In this article we’re looking at the current state of BIGO LIVE in 2024: Who is streaming on it, what are they streaming, and to what niche is BIGO LIVE appealing to grow their user base? Some of the topics covered include:
BIGO LIVE was founded back in 2014 in Singapore by ex-journalist David Li and his collaborator Jason Hu, hoping to capitalize on the growing interest in social media and, specifically, live streaming. The platform launched in 2016, slowly gaining momentum as it accumulated viewers in South East Asia before being bought out by Chinese tech conglomerate JOYY in 2019. JOYY’s other apps also emphasize social connectivity, such as Likee (for short video content) and Hago (a variety gaming app). It wasn’t until the pandemic in 2020 that BIGO LIVE really took off though, finding an audience in Latin America and soaring up the app store charts to become the 5th highest app for in-app purchase revenue worldwide in March 2020.
BIGO LIVE’s advantage over many other live-streaming apps was its location and its mobile-friendly nature. The app amassed 500M+ downloads on the app store and, as of 2023, achieved 400M users in 150 countries. Perhaps due to this majority-mobile usage, BIGO LIVE often attracts more comparisons to TikTok than other live-streaming platforms like Twitch or Kick. In this sense, BIGO LIVE had a much smaller audience, but offered its creators a greater chance of exposure (due to less competition) and higher pay rates than TikTok (discussed in more detail below).
BIGO LIVE stresses the importance of connecting communities across the globe through culture, entertainment, and education (outlined in its 2020 promotional trailer). To support this vision, BIGO LIVE organizes events that bring the community together – being much quicker to adopt this strategy than competitors like Kick or Facebook Live. The annual BIGO LIVE Awards Gala, for example, celebrates the platform’s outstanding streamers, while recreational events like the BIGO Pasar Malam captivate viewers around the world with cultural sights like the Malaysian night markets.
BIGO LIVE has managed to situate itself among the top live-streaming platforms worldwide. In July of 2024, BIGO LIVE achieved a monthly viewership of 28.8M hours watched, overtaking both Steam (23.7M) and Facebook Live (22M). BIGO LIVE may even take 6th place next quarter, as the next competitor on the board, Rumble, will likely decline in viewership without U.S. election coverage to attract audiences. BIGO LIVE’s July bump in viewership was most likely helped by the BIGO SUMMER 2024 event hosted in Vietnam: An elimination tournament featuring guessing games and performances judged by some of Bigo’s most famous South East Asian content creators like Keng Xii and Cô Milk.
On the topic of content creators, many of BIGO LIVE’s top streamers come from vastly different regions and create non-gaming content. This is certainly the case for BIGO LIVE’s most popular streamer DREBABY, who generated 6.4M hours watched since the 18th of March 2024. Many of the other top streamers come from two main regions: South East Asia and Latin America. In fact, Brazil is the most popular country in terms of viewership with 1.6M hours watched (although not all users report their country of residence).
BIGO LIVE has a number of special features which set it apart from its competitors. Many of BIGO LIVE’s features promote collaboration, such as its multi-guest streams which allow up to 12 streamers to create content together on one channel for panel discussions or hangouts. Streamers can also join a “BIGO Family” to find a supportive network of other content creators, or use BIGO’s new Communities feature to find streamers with shared interests.
Alternatively, BIGO LIVE also encourages streamers to compete with one another to prove who has the most engaged fanbase. Player Knockouts (PKs) are limited-time events in which streamers need to receive gifts and likes from their fans to stay in the fight. This PK feature was introduced back in 2017 before TikTok later adopted the mechanic. In terms of motivation, this PK mechanic is similar to Twitch’s subathons, albeit with an added “versus” element mixed in to create a spectacle for fans. It’s no surprise that some commentators compare BIGO LIVE to a game in this respect. Regardless, whether they’re collaborative or competitive, all of these functions serve to push streamers into interacting with one another.
BIGO LIVE’s other unique features focus more on blurring the line between a traditional live-streaming platform and an all-in-one messaging platform. For starters, streamers can start private video calls with specific viewers or with other streamers instead of hosting a public room. They can also use filters (a la Instagram or Snapchat) to enliven their content. But perhaps BIGO LIVE’s biggest hook is its ability to generate fully 3D avatars within the app itself. Not only do these 3D avatars provide a high-tech method of personalization, but they’re also great for streamers who prefer not to show themselves on camera (e.g. camera shy creators, or VTubers who role play through their avatars).
Since BIGO LIVE’s users mostly engage through the mobile app, it makes sense that most of the top games being streamed on the platform are mobile games. By far the most dominant game is Battle Royale Garena Free Fire with 6.2M hours watched since the 18th of March 2024 – a full 5.7M hours watched ahead of the next most popular game Tanki X (a Tank-based Action game). Garena and BIGO LIVE have a close bond, both being based out of Singapore and having solidified their connection through an esports partnership. Although gaming content is taking a backseat for now, this segment of the audience could grow as mobile games continue to generate demand (as seen with the Esports World Cup earlier this year).
Outside of gaming content, there are some concerns around lax policing of adult content on BIGO LIVE. Anyone around the world can stream with few restrictions, which means there are bots, sketchy streamers, and 18+ content creators. While these looser restrictions may be necessary to gain new users, BIGO LIVE is still more proactive than many competitors in actively trying to crack down on the misuse of its platform. To begin with, the platform is only recommended for users aged 17 and above (though you wouldn’t guess it from their cute dinosaur mascot, Bigo Dino). The platform has also partnered with companies and initiatives designed to protect users online, such as kids safety agency Bark and LGBT anti-suicide support group The Trevor Project. Ultimately, user discretion is part and parcel of any live-streaming platform.
One of BIGO LIVE’s primary drawcards is its promise of high income for popular streamers. The platform itself makes money through in-app purchases, paid ads, and partnerships with specific companies. With 38M users and 1.67M paying users as of Q4 2023, these revenue streams keep the platform afloat while allowing BIGO LIVE to fund generous incentives for newcomers. The BIGO LIVE economy relies on a few in-app currencies:
Streamers can sign up to become a BIGO LIVE host (similar to a Twitch Affiliate) in which they receive extra revenue based on their monthly performance. There are different earnings tiers based on a streamer’s airtime and how many Beans they generated. Although the details of these payment tiers are usually restricted to internal viewing by BIGO LIVE hosts with their agents, some creators have supposedly leaked these numbers online. As we can’t verify these numbers ourselves, we’ve chosen not to print these values here – but feel free to check out BIGO LIVE’s supposed pay chart here. These payment tiers again encourage streamers to treat BIGO LIVE like a game, banding together with other streamers to boost each others’ total Beans through the aforementioned PK events and collaborations.
BIGO LIVE most likely hopes to find a consistent reason for streamers to join the platform beyond simple monetization. Their Communities feature may, in time, spark off niche groups that newcomers can only find on its platform. This niche may end up being mobile gaming, with these titles being increasingly popular in both South East Asia and Latin America. Stream Hatchet will be watching as BIGO LIVE makes big moves in the coming years.
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VTubers come in many forms; in fact, it’s one of the many reasons a growing number of streamers are trying their hand at this emerging streaming style. The wide array of VTuber models and VTuber avatars opens up new routes for role-playing online, creating virtual communities of extraordinary characters. These range from aspiring idols putting on concerts to supernatural demons and spirits who choose to play games in their free time.
Cover Image Credit: Stream Skins
With so many options, it begs the question: What VTuber models find the most success on live streaming? While we previously provided an overview of popular VTubers, in this article we’re honing in on the demographics of the top VTubers to see what their audiences tend to gravitate towards. These VTuber model topics include:
VTuber culture emerged in Japan as an offshoot of idol culture, with many VTubers retaining that legacy through their 3D virtual concerts and dependency on agencies for management (like Hololive and NIJISANJI). It’s no surprise that of the top 100 VTubers by hours watched over the past two years, 82% call Japan their home. Other Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Indonesia have fed off this hype as well, with local VTubers breaking out in their native language. But the United States is by far the most promising new country for VTuber growth, already featuring 7 of the top 100 streamers. No doubt this is helped by the immense popularity of live streaming in general in the U.S.
Mostly due to this regional split, the platform distribution of top VTubers is also skewed. Among the same group of 100 VTubers, 72% of them use YouTube Gaming as their primary live-streaming platform. Japanese streamers find YouTube better suited to their needs for a couple of reasons. Firstly, YouTube also hosts pre-recorded content which is perfect for the more polished videos VTubers regularly produce. Secondly, YouTube has a lot in common with Japanese video-hosting site NicoNico, which has been popular since its inception in 2006. There are still over a quarter of top VTubers who stream on Twitch though, reflecting the artform’s migration onto Amazon’s platform. Other platforms still remain too niche to feature among the top 100 VTubers, but Asian live-streaming platforms like SOOP and Bigo Live are particularly friendly to VTubers.
With so much possible variety among VTuber models, it’s surprising to see similar kinds of VTubers popping up over and over again. Across the top 100 VTubers, most of them tend to be the stereotypical young, female anime girl. But there is a lot of variation both within that group and outside of it – more than many onlookers might think. Note that the following categorizations are based on presentation only, not based on a character’s specific lore (I.e. certain VTubers may be many hundreds of years old in their backstory or on VTuber wikis, but present as being much younger in human form).
Looking first at gender, an overwhelming 80% of all VTubers are female in appearance. VTuber agency Hololive reports that 82% of its audience is men, which matches with the performer/fan relationship seen in idol culture. In saying that, rival agency NIJISANJI has seen significant success with male VTubers such as Kuzuha and Lauren Iroas, both of whom stream on Twitch. Male and female VTubers tend to slot into very specific roles, with male VTubers being princes, knights, hosts, or CEOs, while female VTubers tend to be idols, maids, and goth girls. Of course, that’s just among human VTubers… more on that below.
Age-wise, we’ve categorized VTubers into three separate categories: Young Adult (anywhere from 16 – 25), Child-like (younger than 16), and Adult (older than 25). Using this definition, the bulk of the top 100 VTubers (74%) tend to fall into this Young Adult range. Again, this preference might echo idol culture, but it could also represent the age range that younger fans are looking to for guidance. Child-like VTubers in this group are always kawaii (cute) first and foremost, while Adult VTubers come across as dependable, learned, and sometimes risqué. As a result, age itself is often enough of a gimmick to stand out from the pack (note the lack of any elderly VTubers in this top 100 group).
Although simple human forms account for the majority of VTubers (57%), their virtual form allows for further experimentation. The two most common VTuber forms can roughly be grouped as “Anthropomorphic” VTubers (20%) and “Supernatural” VTubers (21%). Anthropomorphic VTuber models feature some element of an animal in their design, such as cat ears, ram horns, or bird wings. Two of the most popular VTubers ever fall into this category, those being Usada Pekora and Gawr Gura. Supernatural VTubers include demons, spirits, vampires, and wizards – anything magical or otherworldly. Demon girls or succubi are particularly prevalent, as shown by VTuber Ironmouse’s incredible popularity. Interestingly, fox girls are technically both anthropomorphic and supernatural, as they’re typically based on kitsune (a type of spirit).
Although being a VTuber allows for complete freedom from form, it appears that the culture still leads streamers toward conventionally accepted shapes. In particular, every single top 100 VTuber is based on an anime aesthetic – again, owing itself to the artform’s origins in Japan. Other more practical considerations also limit form, such as avatars needing to be human-shaped (for software tracking purposes). But this still leaves a lot of room for innovation, including other common characters like robots and aliens. Rare exceptions to the norms outlined above do exist, in particular VTubers that are entirely animals like Chiroru. Hopefully as VTubers continue to grow in popularity, more experimental VTuber models can rise to the top of the charts.
With the VTuber space rapidly expanding, it’s worth looking at just how popular most VTubers are. Among all streamers, the bulk of creators tend to generate very little viewership as they either experiment with streaming as a hobby or grind away in the hopes of finding their audience. In a previous analysis, we found that roughly 60% of all streamers had less than 10 average viewers on Twitch.
Among VTubers, the distribution of streamers looks wildly different. Across a sample of 1.6K VTubers, the largest group (35.4%) had an average viewership between 101 and 500. This grouping may represent VTubers who have found their desired niche audience and happily create content that suits their desires – albeit without targeting the mega-popular games played by higher average viewership VTubers (covered in more detail here).
What sets this top group of VTubers (20.1%) apart, allowing them to generate an average viewership of more than 1K? The gulf between these two groups may represent agency vs. non-agency VTubers. Of course, agency VTubers receive more financial support, but crucially they also have access to other prominent VTubers to collaborate with. Collaborations are essential for VTuber success, allowing the different personalities to play off of one another. This is just speculation though: There are many other reasons a streamer might have had an exceptionally high average viewership over this period. Take Minato Aqua, for example, who “graduated” (retired her VTuber persona) on the 28th of August and generated an overwhelming peak viewership of 963K – no doubt inflating her average viewership across all streams.
With VTuber models seemingly playing such a large part in a streamer’s chance of success, it’s worth taking a quick examination of how to make a VTuber model. It is possible to create your own AI VTuber entirely from scratch – there are certainly plenty of guides online such as this wikiHow guide. While a full walkthrough is beyond the purview of this article, the primary challenges of creating a model are finding assets and implementing them in tracking software that can map the assets onto your own body.
A more realistic option for amateur VTubers is to purchase both the assets and the software online. This option is cheaper, requires less technical know-how, and removes some of the creative burden of designing an entirely new avatar from scratch. Take the Rindo VTuber model for example: A default avatar sold by STUDIO JINGO for roughly $70 USD. Free VTuber models exist too, but are of a much lower quality. The issue is that these VTuber models will inevitably look similar to other people who purchased the same model – not what you want when you’re trying to express your individuality!
This is where custom VTuber modeling comes into play: Redesigning base VTuber models or purchasing assets to dress them up and make them your own. This kind of customization feels similar to character customization in an RPG, bridging the gap between gaming and live streaming. Stream Skins and catboymech are both great examples of online VTuber model asset shops that offer a great amount of variety to budding VTubers. Unique designs can make all the difference when trying to compete with the high-value, fully 3D models of agency VTubers.
For the individual, which VTuber model they pursue will most likely come down to personal preference rather than strategic decision-making. But sponsors looking to partner with mid-tier VTubers might do well to heed to common trends among mega-popular VTubers and their appearances if they hope to reach the largest possible audience. In the future, advancements will hopefully allow for greater experimentation with and accessibility to VTuber model technology.
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UPDATE: This article was updated on the 4th of December 2024 with a complete overview of Kai Cenat’s Mafiathon 2 and a look at the popularity of various celebrity cameos.
Over the past two years, Kai Cenat has become the undisputed leader of live-streaming hype. The early phase of Kai Cenat’s streaming career thrived off of stunts and collaborations, leading to explosive growth with costumed events and celebrity cameos. One of the cornerstones of his content has been marathon streams in which he pushes himself to provide a consistent flow of non-stop content.
Chief among these are his subathon streams known as “Mafiathons” – a portmanteau of “marathon” and “Mafia”, the name for his fanbase. On the 1st of November, Kai Cenat began Mafiathon 2, a much-hyped event promising to relive the glory of the original (and now iconic) Mafiathon stream back in February of 2023. In this article we’re looking at the success of Mafiathon 2, the popularity of the celebrities that turned up to support the event, and comparing Mafiathon 2 with the past viewership of Kai Cenat’s many other marathon streams.
At the end of Mafiathon 2, Kai Cenat has pulled in monumental viewership. From November 1st to November 30th, Mafiathon 2 generated 82.8M hours watched with a peak viewership of 623K concurrent viewers. To put this into perspective, that’s an average viewership of 119K over 30 straight days of continuous streaming. Mafiathon 2 has far exceeded the total hours watched for the original Mafiathon (discussed more below). On-stream events like a fully costumed fake wedding and numerous group challenges kept viewers tuned in, with 20% of all profit going towards building a school in Nigeria.
As Kai Cenat gained immense popularity, the chance to feature on his streams has become a draw card for celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Miranda Cosgrove, and Bill Nye who all came over to Kai Cenat’s stream throughout Mafiathon 2. But the biggest turnout was for comedians Kevin Hart and Druski at 6.7M daily hours watched for their joint Thanksgiving stream and the aforementioned peak viewership of 623K. Other fan favourites included SZA and Lizzo’s joint collaboration, and same-day chats with Serena Williams and Marshmello.
At the end of Mafiathon 2, Kai Cenat has shattered previous records. Kai Cenat gained an overwhelming 664K subs in November, doubling the previous amount gained by VTuber Ironmouse just a couple months ago. When ironmouse broke the record during Twitch’s annual SUBtember event, Kai Cenat promised to regain his title (having previously held the record for over a year at 306K subs).
Kai Cenat’s sub count has steadily picked up over the last couple of years. In 2022, he was averaging a few thousand new subs per month, before gaining traction in the second half of the year. All of this mounting popularity paid off in February 2023 when Kai Cenat hit a personal record of 55K new subs in one month thanks to the original Mafiathon. As a firmly established streamer, Kai Cenat now regularly pulls in tens of thousands of new subscribers every month even outside of specific subathon events. Note that the quoted values don’t account for “churned” subs (i.e. subscribers that Kai Cenat lost during this time). Churned subs are particularly common for subathon events, as many subscribers opt not to renew after their first month.
Realizing the popularity of his marathon streams, Kai Cenat has constructed his streaming schedule around these events with high-production trailers, costuming, and viewer perks for tuning in. So far, Kai Cenat has hosted 9 major marathon streams, with only three being IRL streams (his two Mafiathons, and his Seven-day Jail marathon). As these streams vary greatly by airtime, the fairest way to compare the relative success of these marathons is by looking at their average viewership and peak viewership.
Looking first at IRL streams, these tend to be Kai Cenat’s most successful marathons. The original Mafiathon and the Seven-day Jail marathon brought in average viewerships of 66.6K and 76.8K, respectively. Mafiathon spawned viral moments which have since become ingrained in the lore of Kai Cenat’s channel, such as getting attacked by dogs (on purpose of course, handled by dog trainers). This first Mafiathon set the precedent for events to come, building Kai Cenat’s legacy as he shot past Ninja and Ludwig’s previous Twitch subs records. The Seven-day Jail marathon pulled in the higher average airtime, mainly due to its much shorter length and pent-up hype from Mafiathon. Mafiathon 2 far surpassed both of these IRL marathons however, with an average viewership of 119K.
In 2024, Kai Cenat tried numerous gaming marathon streams to mix up the formula. By far the most popular solo stream was his original 172-hour Elden Ring marathon which brought in an average viewership of 91.8K. The series was so popular that Kai Cenat followed it up with marathons of all the other major Souls-like titles published by FromSoftware, including Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, Bloodborne, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. IShowSpeed decided to join in the fun, collaborating with Kai Cenat on a 106-hour Minecraft marathon with an average viewership of 115K – nearly as high as Mafiathon 2! Although IShowSpeed no doubt boosted Kai Cenat’s viewing figures, Kai still brought in 4.5M hours watched more than IShowSpeed over the course of their respective Minecraft streams.
Although Mafiathon 2 had many high production value events to keep viewers entertained, by far the most fun aspect for regular fans was seeing which celebrity would turn up next. Almost every single day, Kai Cenat had a new celebrity join him on stream from musicians to actors to scientists. Looking at chat mentions, Druski and SZA were the most hyped celebrity appearances with 50.7K and 33.5K chat mentions, respectively. Other notable guests included Chris Brown (10.1K), GloRilla (2.6K), and a special appearance from Kai Cenat’s Twitch subs rival ironmouse (3.3K) in which Kai Cenat temporarily became a VTuber himself.
Given the overwhelming success of Mafiathon 2 so far, Kai Cenat will no doubt create more IRL marathon streams in the future, hopefully innovating on the format with new twists. But the performance of Mafiathon 2 goes beyond just Kai Cenat’s channel: This event sends a signal to other celebrities that featuring on popular streams is a legitimate way of extending one’s reach. Stream Hatchet will be watching as celebrity cameos increase in 2025 and beyond.
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Sections of the original article regarding the midway point of Kai Cenat’s Mafiathon 2 can be found below:
Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of these marathon events, the majority of Kai Cenat’s most viewed games revolve around recent marathon streams. 6 of the top 11 most viewed categories by hours watched are exclusively related to marathon streams, with Elden Ring coming second at 20.1M hours watched. This isn’t completely surprising, given that Kai Cenat’s marathons also rank among some of the most viewed streams of all time. Funnily enough, the I’m Only Sleeping category even brought in 20M hours watched over the past two years (albeit with a much lower average viewership) due to Kai’s periodic rest periods during marathon streams. Still though, Just Chatting remains Kai Cenat’s most popular category by far with 175.8M hours watched.
As the Switch nears the end of its lifecycle, gamers are nervously anticipating the announcement of the so-called “Switch 2”. Fans are holding back on big purchases, seeing Nintendo’s revenue sink 17% YoY down to ¥276.7B for fiscal Q2 2024. Nintendo has been tiding fans over with transmedia strategies and legacy building such as the super successful Super Mario Bros. Movie, the opening of the Nintendo Museum, and expansions to Super Nintendo World.
But people still want to see Nintendo doing what they do best: Making revolutionary game consoles and innovating within their much-loved IPs. The second half of 2024 has seen three smaller titles launching with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Super Mario Party Jamboree, and now the latest title Mario & Luigi: Brothership. But with so much hype for Nintendo’s next console generation, these titles might be overlooked by impatient streamers.
In this article, we’re looking at how Mario & Luigi: Brothership performed on live-streaming platforms, including a look back at Nintendo’s best performing titles and a glimpse into the online chatter around the upcoming Switch 2.
Mario & Luigi: Brothership had a warm reception on live-streaming platforms, generating 933K hours watched in its debut week despite the lack of fanfare around its release. For comparison to a similar title in both gameplay scope and IP recognition, Sonic X Shadow Generations brought in slightly lower viewership at 831K hours watched. While this indicates a decent performance for the game, it pales in comparison to the other recently released Nintendo RPG remakes like Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door which generated 3.9M and 2.6M hours watched in their respective debut weeks (no doubt boosted by nostalgia).
Additionally, Mario & Luigi: Brothership owes much of its success to top streamer バトラ (Batora324) who pulled in 190K hours watched – a full 20.4% of the game’s total viewership. This focused dependence on certain creators for exposure suggests a lack of influencer marketing collaboration for promoting Nintendo’s games. In saying that, Nintendo does have known influencer partnerships with select content creators like Wood, SMG4, and Nintendo Unity. English-speaking streamer BarbarousKing is an example of a loyal Nintendo fan who consistently covers Nintendo’s first-party releases, this time bringing in 73K hours watched for Mario & Luigi: Brothership.
Nintendo has a number of game franchises that have live-streaming compatibility, bringing their classic IP to a modern audience. Among the top games by peak weekly viewership, Pokémon games occupy 4 of the top 10 spots (led by Pokémon Scarlet & Violet with 26M hours watched in its release week). Note that this list only includes first-party Nintendo titles released during or after January 2020 (primarily sourced here), so there are some notable exceptions like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
The games that break from this Pokémon trend reveal unique interactivity between live streaming and Nintendo games. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a particularly interesting example, thriving off of the pandemic-era boost in live-streaming viewership to reach 18.7M hours watched as viewers sought a cozy escape from reality. The immense hype for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom explains its monumental viewership (18M), while Splatoon 3’s competitive gameplay pulled more hardcore viewers onto live-streaming platforms (10M). Although Nintendo is typically associated with casual gamers, this range of avenues onto live streaming proves that even dedicated gamers are finding ways to pursue their content through an online community.
It’s no secret that Nintendo fans are desperate for Switch 2 news – not just for the new console and performance upgrades, but for first-party launch titles from beloved series like a new 3D platformer Mario and, potentially, the new Metroid Prime. In the past couple of months alone, “Switch 2” has been mentioned 75K times across Twitch and Kick. Twitch streamer MarioSoundtrack4 had the most mentions (2.4K), but this discussion is spread across a great many channels. Looking at chat mentions by Twitch categories, a couple of unexpected games pop up for Switch 2 discussion including EVE Online (1.6K mentions) and Plate Up! (1.4K mentions). Of course, the bulk of speculation occurs on stream categories dedicated to pure discussion like Just Chatting (15.1K mentions) and Talk Shows & Podcasts (2.3K mentions).
While this excitement for the Switch 2 suggests a large pool of potential buyers, a new console is always a double-edged sword. Part of why the Switch has endured so long is the gradual accumulation of momentum from consistent new console sales, building that fanbase. The leap to Switch 2 risks leaving behind a lot of casual gamers who don’t regularly buy consoles – the exact segment of the market that Nintendo caters to. Nintendo is aware of how crucial it is to capitalize on pre-existing buyers, moving to an “Unfold” revenue system for some of its bigger titles like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokémon.
A culture of “overhype” has developed around Nintendo Directs, leading to such emotional responses from fans that Nintendo warns users when much-anticipated news won’t be announced to avoid disappointment and subsequent flaming online. While the roadmap of these last three first-party titles has stemmed the tide of dissatisfaction temporarily, Nintendo will be looking to announce the Switch’s successor soon and give fans something concrete to be excited about in 2025.
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Sega stepped out of the limelight back in 2001 when it announced its decision to cede the console race to Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. While the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Sega Saturn, and Sega Dreamcast all left indelible impressions on their fans, the lack of commercial success led Sega to focus their efforts on video game publishing.
But Sega’s rebellious spirit lived on, innovating through acquisitions of disparate studios and empowering the talented individuals therein to develop high-quality games. They clawed their way back from the financial setbacks of their console-making days and earned both critical and commercial acclaim, becoming Metacritic’s Top-rated Publisher of the Year in 2020. Though mostly associated with Sonic, Sega has proven itself to be more than a one-mascot pony with massive hype for multiple franchises at Tokyo Game Show.
In this article, we’re looking at Sega’s repeated successes throughout 2024, including key franchises that have made the jump onto live streaming and the steps the Japanese publisher has taken to build momentum heading into 2025.
Sega’s most recent game was one of its most highly anticipated, featuring The Blue Blur himself: Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic X Shadow Generations takes its cue from the earlier release Sonic Generations, with both titles reimagining stages from old Sonic games but with updated (and thankfully better controlled) gameplay. Like many other games including Star Wars Outlaws and World of Warcraft: The War Within, Sonic X Shadow Generations provided Advanced Access to Digital Deluxe Edition buyers which opened on the 22nd of October. As a result, debut week data is taken from this date.
With this caveat, Sonic X Shadows Generations generated 831K hours watched in its debut week, with a peak viewership of 30K. This is a relatively modest viewership compared to other AAA titles, and certainly small when compared to other well-known IPs. The game’s recycling of classic maps can hurt viewership, with some users not suitably incentivised to tune in just for a rehash of ‘old content’. However, the decent airtime of 42K hours suggests streamers were still interested in checking out the game – just not big-name streamers with large in-built audiences.
Still, Sega’s strategy of playing on nostalgia isn’t misguided. For starters, Sonic X Shadow Generations debuted to glowing reviews and over 1M copies sold within its first day of release. But more crucially to Sega’s overall business strategy, Sonic games have incredible long-term viewership on live-streaming platforms. Games like Sonic Adventure 2 Battle still generated 2.9M hours watched since the start of 2020 despite having been released back in 2001 (and also featuring Shadow the Hedgehog).
The only games to have beaten this viewership over the same time period are Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Frontiers with 6.1M and 5.8M hours watched, respectively. However, it’s worth noting that streams tagged Sonic the Hedgehog may refer to many, MANY Sonic games and other media, including (but not limited to) the original Sonic the Hedgehog game, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006, Sonic TV series’ watch parties and so on.
So why didn’t this latest release reach the heights of Sonic Frontiers? This might come down to a perception issue: Games like Sonic X Shadow Generations feel like handheld, miniaturized titles when compared to fully 3D, open-world games like Sonic Frontiers. It’s the same reason a game like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom can’t hope to pull in the viewership of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom despite both being from the same franchise, featuring on the same console, and utilizing similar sandbox mechanics. Mega-popular streamers will automatically check out a new “mainline” game in a major franchise, but “spin-off” or “handheld” games don’t have the same allure as they’re considered inexpensive experiments or low-performance alternatives.
While Sonic X Shadow Generations might not be the best fit for live streaming, Sega has plenty of other IPs that have successfully made the leap AND are garnering positive sentiment from all facets of the industry. Speculators have noticed this incredible year among Sega-published games, despite coming from totally distinct franchises. Some recent entries with highly-rated scores on Metacritic include:
Below we look at the live-streaming performance for Sega games in 2024, including many of these well-reviewed titles.
At the top of the heap is Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the latest entry in the Ryū ga Gotoku series, which pulled in 15.2M hours watched since its release in January 2024. Although the original game was designed to appeal to fans of Japanese crime dramas, the series’ hyper-specific tone slowly won over Western players. The switch from action adventure to RPG with the series’ previous entry, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, saw an explosion in popularity that led to the franchise’s current demand. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth continues to innovate by featuring contemporary influences like VTubers and exploring alternate genres with spin-offs. With one new game released every year since the series’ inception in 2006 (except 2021), this is an exciting time to be a Like a Dragon fan.
Speaking of RPGs, Atlus’ games also have some of the biggest live-streaming viewerships among Sega’s published titles with Persona 3 Reload and Metaphor: ReFantazio generating 11.2M and 8.7M hours watched in 2024, respectively. We’ve discussed the era-defining Metaphor: ReFantazio previously, so its monumental success requires little further discussion here. Meanwhile, Persona 3 Reload continued Atlus’ trend of remastering their previous RPGs in delightfully modern ways that innovate enough to feel like more than mere recycled content.
Lastly, we have titles that many might be surprised to find are published by Sega given that they come from Western developers, including Football Manager 2024 (8.7M), Total War: Warhammer III (7.1M), and Alien: Isolation (4.5M). These franchises stand on their own merits, representing some of the best gameplay in their respective genres from established IP. Football Manager 2024 deserves special mention, however, being the best-selling entry in the series so far with 7M players.
Sega of America CEO Shuji Utsumi acknowledges the importance of Sonic, Ryū ga Gotoku, and Persona in keeping Sega relevant over the past couple of decades. But as shown above, Sega has not just survived but thrived. The SEGA SAMMY Group (which also includes arcade and pachinko machines) jumped from sales of ¥277.7B in 2020 to ¥467.8B in 2024 – a nearly ¥200B increase over 5 years!
Reinforcing this idea, Sega has kept a solid baseline of roughly 18M hours watched per quarter on live-streaming platforms, with peaks for new releases – including a massive peak of 42.8M hours watched in Q1 2024 coinciding with the release of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. While other publishers struggle to produce consistent results year-over-year as they rely on a few select franchises (even big publishers like Nintendo with Mario and Zelda), Sega’s diversity of IP and global publishers keep them consistently relevant. Sega is employing two key strategies to capitalize on its current assets.
Firstly, Sega has fully embraced transmedia approaches to its IP. The list of TV shows, films, and comics based on Sega IP are too numerous to list in full, but some examples include the mega-popular trilogy of Sonic films (with the third film to release in December this year), the much-memed Sonic TV show, the upcoming Like a Dragon TV series, and film adaptations of Shinobi and House of the Dead. And all this is even without touching on Sega’s involvement with arcade games and even virtual concerts/music with Hatsune Miku! In essence, Sega knows that by leveraging its positive reputation in gaming and iconic character designs to diversify into other entertainment avenues, it can strengthen its IP recognition.
The second strategy involves providing a diversity of play opportunities rather than going all-in on one key experience (like many live service game developers). The current form of this strategy involves Sega bringing back many of their classic titles through remakes, remasters, and (possibly) reboots. At The Game Awards 2023, Sega released a short trailer showing that much-loved games like Jet Set Radio, Golden Axe, and Crazy Taxi would be receiving modern updates. This isn’t simply cashing in on recognizable IP: Sega is hoping to recapture the rebellious edge of their Dreamcast days where they emphasized technological advancements (many often considered “ahead of their time”). These include the Dreamcast’s cross-genre games and internet access (including MMO Phantasy Star Online).
With this exciting strategy moving forward, Sega’s run of successful titles has come at the perfect time: Key competitor Nintendo is having a relatively dry year leading into the Switch 2’s announcement, while Capcom relies on just 2 or 3 key franchises for live-streaming popularity. It remains to be seen if Sega can carry its momentum into next year, but events like Twitch Drops or influencer marketing collaborations could be the key to further spreading the Sega hype.
Correction: The wrong image was used for Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth – this has now been amended.
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Dragon Age is one of the most consistently praised Western RPG series across its various entries, achieving both critical and commercial success for its publisher EA. The latest entry Dragon Age: The Veilguard therefore saw a mounting wave of anticipation leading up to its release, made more immense by the 10-year wait since the previous game. This new game continues directly off of the story BioWare built for the previous entry in the series, Dragon Age: Inquisition, but follows a new cast of characters with the developer’s trademark knack for deep and charming personalities.
In this article, we’re looking at the performance of Dragon Age: The Veilguard on live-streaming platforms, including chat sentiment for the title and how it stacks up against the pantheon of other fantastic RPGs released in the past year like Metaphor: ReFantazio and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard made an undeniably strong impression on live streaming upon its release. In its debut week, Dragon Age: The Veilguard generated 4.7M hours watched with a peak viewership of 207K. This performance matches the game’s resounding success on Steam, hitting a peak concurrent player count of 89K (that’s 21K higher than EA’s previous record peak concurrent player count for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor at 68K). The game’s warm reception is another win for EA, which earlier this year hit big with sports game EA College Football 25.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a perfect melding of EA’s business sense with BioWare’s excellent storytelling. For starters, Dragon Age: The Veilguard shifted its combat towards a more action-oriented approach, pushing it into the realm of an action RPG. We’ve seen a similar trend among series like Final Fantasy with Final Fantasy XVI which, although lamented by some older fans, has generally been well received by modern audiences. Additionally, the reworked combat is backed up by BioWare’s in-depth character work (see: Mass Effect 2) that adds real meaning to the gameplay and sidequests.
This impressive viewership came from a relatively small airtime of 125K hours, suggesting that a few big-name streamers were largely responsible for bringing eyes onto the game. The data backs this up, with massive streaming personalities like zackrawrr and CohhCarnage pulling in 430K and 244K hours watched from Dragon Age: The Veilguard content, respectively. These two also represent a broader trend among the top streamers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard: Almost all of them are Twitch streamers (the one exception in the top 10 being HeelvsBabyface with 104K hours watched). These creators were a massive boon to the game’s overall reach, hitting far higher numbers than EA’s official stream on Steam (just 63K hours watched).
It wasn’t just streamers that were attracted to Dragon Age: The Veilguard – viewers showed their support for the game as well. In its first week, 240K chatters on Twitch and Kick sent 3.3M messages on Dragon Age: The Veilguard streams. Among these messages, the sentiment was generally positive with 22.7% positive messages versus just 12.2% negative messages. For a game that had such a loft legacy to live up to, this kind of welcoming reception is impressive.
Many of the messages focused on viewers supporting their favorite Dragon Age: The Veilguard characters by spamming their names in chat. Among the main cast, “Rook”, “Neve”, and “Lucanis” received the most attention with 7.2K, 6K, and 3.7K chat mentions, respectively. After a long drought of 10 years, fans were happy to see BioWare doing what they do best: “Character” work (21K mentions) with a blend of RPG-focused “fun” (16K mentions). Many also called out the more “action RPG” focus of this latest entry (766 mentions).
Looking at BioWare’s catalog of games released in the past few years reveals a sadly short list of just three titles: New entry Dragon Age: The Veilguard, remastered classics in Mass Effect Legendary Edition, and online action RPG Anthem. Although Anthem was not well-received by BioWare fans, the hype propelled it to the highest debut week viewership of the three titles with 5.4M hours watched. This was helped by the online nature of the game being particularly conducive to live-streaming coverage. Still, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s performance was respectable even given this handicap.
But the real test for this game is pitting it against other recently released RPGs. Amidst a flood of excellent RPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Elden Ring (with its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC), it can be hard for any other RPG titles to make an impact. Perhaps the best comparison from this year is Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 which brought in a massive 19M hours watched in its first week – over 4x the viewership of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. While the player base was a big win for EA, the RPG genre is quickly becoming saturated which means exceptional titles are needed to grab viewer attention.
It seems that for now, EA and BioWare’s plan is to regroup and focus their full attention on the next Mass Effect game, with no DLC being planned for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This makes good business sense (given that Mass Effect is their most successful series critically and commercially), but will still be heartbreaking for Dragon Age fans. Meanwhile, EA will push for higher viewership and player numbers with other series like EA College Football and their revamped plan for The Sims. Stream Hatchet will be watching for more updates in the coming months.
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2024 has been a massive year for mobile game developer Supercell, with the launch of its latest title Squad Busters putting a button on close to a decade of significant expansions and focused advertising campaigns. This is a massive company, with Supercell stock skyrocketing ever since its acquisition by conglomerate Tencent for $8.6B in 2016 (for 84.3% of the business’ shares).
Since then, there’s been accelerating growth in Supercell’s focus on its esports tournaments, which, for the first time this year, culminated in one spectacular event: SuperFest. SuperFest, held in Helsinki, features all three of the finales for Supercell’s biggest esports titles: The Clash of Clans World Championship Finals, the Clash Royale League World Finals, and the Brawl Stars Championship Finals. SuperFest seems to be an investment in broadening the Supercell world and making its brand more united across its various IPs.
In this article, we’re looking at the performance of the inaugural SuperFest 2024 overall, including the popularity of specific tournaments and the global reach of the event.
SuperFest was a roaring success in its first-ever year. SuperFest 2024 managed to reach 7.9M hours watched with a peak viewership of just under 1.1M over its three-day period from the 1st to the 3rd of November. The event boasted an average concurrent viewership of 291K, proving to provide dedicated, no-fluff content for viewers online. Unlike many esports tournaments, SuperFest was almost exclusively covered on Twitch and YouTube, accounting for 73.6% and 26.4% of total viewership, respectively.
The weekend saw some fantastic plays and fans cheering on their favorite players/teams. Synchronic Gaming walked away as the Clash of Clans champions, Mohamed Light proved his dominance in Clash Royale, and the biggest win of the tournament went to HMBLE in Brawl Stars – an Italian team that managed to win the cup on their debut performance. Across all three games that were played, a massive prize pool of $2.9M was handed out to winners and podium placers.
While Supercell’s SuperFest was a success overall, looking at the distribution of hours watched between the three constituent tournaments exposes a lopsided appeal in content. Brawl Stars brought in by far the highest viewership of the three games with 7.1M hours watched – that’s 91.3% of all SuperFest viewership. Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were roughly equivalent at 5.5% and 3.2%, respectively. This difference in demand was to be expected, given that Brawl Stars has historically been the highest-performing competition as part of ESL Gaming’s Snapdragon Pro Series (seen in April of this year).
On one hand, having any game perform at this level is a huge accomplishment for a game publisher. But Supercell will no doubt be disappointed with the lack of cross-pollination between audiences for its different titles, perhaps hoping that SuperFest would encourage Brawl Stars fans to tune into Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. The event schedule even alternated these tournaments within each day to increase the likelihood of viewers tuning in for multiple games. Additionally, Brawl Stars’ performance is incredible, but with mobile esports continuing to rise in popularity (like Mobile Legends Bang Bang at the Esports World Cup), it still has a lot of room to grow.
Growing an esports game’s fanbase means reaching new audiences, and one of the best ways to do that is through co-streamers. Co-streamers not only provide expert coverage of the gameplay, but they also bring along their in-built fanbase to an event they might otherwise not have watched. We’ve previously shown just how impactful co-streamers and clever co-streaming partnerships can be to a tournament’s success on live streaming.
Among the co-streamers covering SuperFest 2024, Spanish streamer SpiukBS racked up the most viewership at 1.7M hours watched – more than quadruple that of second place co-streamer Ferre with 376K hours watched. Co-streaming viewership managed to exceed official viewership for SuperFest 2024, comprising 56% of the event’s total hours watched. Sponsoring co-streamers is proven to draw in new fans, like when Ubisoft sponsored Jynxzi’s co-stream for Rainbow Six Siege). Even more promising, the top co-streamers were truly global, speaking six different languages among the top 10 co-streamers alone.
Pushing this language diversity could be the key to accessing a wider audience. At the moment, 68.7% of all SuperFest viewership came from streams primarily tagged as English or Spanish-speaking. This overwhelming majority is partly due to the fact that the official streams have English as their primary language and, as stated earlier, they accounted for the majority of viewership. It’s worth noting that the Supercell website states that SuperFest had “commentators providing expert analysis in up to 12 different languages”, but the popularity of non-English speaking co-streamers still suggests fans from other parts of the world chose co-streamers over official streams.
Just 4.5% of all viewership was attributed to Asian languages (Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, and Korean), proving that Brawl Stars has a majority Western audience. But this is slightly odd: With mobile games and mobile esports being so popular in Asia, why haven’t Supercell’s games made the leap? It could be the games’ aesthetics, which shirk anime appearances in favor of a more Western cartoonish look. Alternatively, the Asian mobile esports market may already be saturated, reducing the incentive for players to adopt a new game. Lastly, mobile games popular among Asian players tend to have very complex mechanics and systems whereas Brawl Stars prides itself on its easy-to-pick-up gameplay. Perhaps discovering a few interested and popular streamers to target with influencer marketing in these regions could boost Supercell’s profile.
Regardless of this smaller segment of the market, Supercell’s esports performance is still incredible. The publisher continues to expand, shown by moves like fully acquiring Beatstar developer Space Ape in early November 2024. But with Brawl Stars as its only hit in esports, Supercell will either need to leverage that IP by entering it into multi-game tournaments (e.g. Esports World Cup) or find other competitive titles.
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VTubers are the vanguard of the live-streaming industry, pushing the medium to its limits at the intersection of technology, identity, and culture. VTubers are bridging the gap between our world and the metaverse, showing how future generations will interact online through completely alternate personas that are just as important to them as their “actual” identities.
Let’s step back for a moment though: What is a VTuber, exactly? VTubers (short for “Virtual YouTubers”) are streamers who present themselves as digital avatars driven by motion capture technology. VTubers command intensely loyal followings even when compared to traditional streamers; as an example, 7 of the top 10 most Super Chatted YouTube Live channels are VTubers. These fanbases interact with one another to form a tight-knit community wholeheartedly invested in the alternate reality of VTubers – essentially, all VTubers and their fans are engaging in one massive roleplay. This demands emotional investment beyond what so-called “Flesh Tubers” (non-VTubers) can expect from their fans.
With VTubers being essential to the mega-popular Japanese streaming market and now expanding globally, brands and publishers need to understand their potential. In this article, we provide a complete overview of the VTuber community, from the lifestyle and culture of VTubers to the more practical financial side of this burgeoning streaming form.
The topics covered include:
VTubers exploded in popularity during the pandemic, when new fans around the world were given the time to invest themselves in this unique, intricate subculture. Pulsar shows the growth in online mentions of VTubers around the first lockdown, with mentions continuing to rise in the following years – proving VTubers aren’t just some one-off novelty. As viewer interest in VTubers rose, so too did their financial impact: In 2023, the market value for VTubers sat at 3.3B with a projected growth to 45.8B in 2032 – that’s a 15x increase in just 9 years!
Much of this demand can be attributed to streaming audiences: Although not all VTubers stream, live streaming is seen as a more interactive form than pre-recorded content and is therefore more popular among fans. Over the past five years, the proportion of quarterly live-streaming viewership attributable to VTubers alone has risen from 0.6% to 3.7% – a massive 10x increase in relative demand! Even as most live-streaming viewership decreased following the pandemic, VTuber viewership kept rising and hit 261K hours watched for Q3 2024. As such, there’s been a big push by VTuber agencies to keep their talent streaming as much as possible.
VTuber agencies are essentially like talent agencies that manage VTubers, put them into groups for collaborations, and support the financial side of their craft with merchandising, concerts, and sponsorships. Some of the key agencies include Hololive, NIJISANJI, and VShojo – but there are a plethora of other options out there for more niche creators, not to mention independent VTubers who go it alone. The most important takeaway is: VTubers with an agency are typically far more popular than independent VTubers. Dungeon Investing has a far more detailed analysis of VTuber agencies for anyone interested in their relative competitiveness.
The most essential knowledge for brands and publishers is who watches VTubers. Hololive’s own research reveals 82% of its audience is male, and 40.5% are between the ages of 18-24. Hence, brands targeting young men are the most likely to succeed when sponsoring the majority of VTubers. Given that no younger age bracket was used in this study, however, it’s possible some viewers are actually in their early-mid teens. The Yano Research Institute shows that NIJISANJI’s talent tends to skew more towards a female audience, most likely due to its abundance of male VTuber talent. In essence then, VTubers are often preferred by people identifying as the opposite gender.
Although VTubers began as a primarily Japanese phenomenon, their global reach has extended greatly ever since the pandemic. Apart from massive popularity in other Asian countries like China and Indonesia, VTuber popularity has extended to the West as well with a plethora of English-speaking VTubers. In fact, according to Pulsar, 80% of online chatter related to VTubers takes place in the U.S. (in English). No doubt the romanized term “VTuber” has helped ease the spread of this phenomenon in online discourse.
Hololive has capitalized on this spread, with a range of English-speaking VTubers launched under its “Hololive EN” banner since 2020. In fact, its most recent group “Hololive Justice!” debuted just this year, yet already has 1.4M subscribers between them – making this group alone a top 30 VTuber brand. Motoaki Tanigo, the CEO of COVER Corporation (parent company of Hololive), often espouses his commitment to the Western VTuber market, shown through VTuber concerts in Melbourne, Los Angeles, and New York, and even through partnerships with American brands, like VTuber Gawr Gura singing for the LA Dodgers.
The ability for VTubers to penetrate a global market was made possible by increasing accessibility through advanced translation and captioning technology on foreign-language streams. This bridge between cultures enables viewers to find exciting, diverse, and alternative content online, which is a massive drawcard for younger audiences. In this way, VTubers again demonstrate an intersection between technology and culture that promises new possibilities for branded sponsorships (e.g. reaching different regional demographics, performing international collaborations, etc.).
Many of the most popular VTubers are able to compete with traditional streamers in terms of viewership, becoming well-known names even amongst non-fans. The most popular VTuber by pure hours watched over the past 12 months is Kuzuha with 40.4M hours watched. His presence at number one actually bucks the common trend of female VTubers generally being more popular than male VTubers. Second place Usada Pekora (31.5M hours watched) and third place Sakura Miko (27M hours watched) might be considered more traditional examples of popular VTubers with their upbeat, kawaii (cute) aesthetics.
Popular VTubers as measured by their average concurrent viewers (AMA) differ slightly, putting female VTubers back on top. By AMA, Sakura Miko is the most popular VTuber with an AMA of 30K, with Usada Pekora following closely behind with an AMA of 29K. Note as well that among the top 10, every single VTuber is associated with either Hololive or NIJISANJI (7 and 3, respectively). This further proves these agencies’ complete dominance in the space.
VTubers primarily have two live-streaming platforms they tend to stream on: Twitch and YouTube. Although historically YouTube has been considered the primary home of VTubers, particularly for Japanese VTubers, the winds are changing. Over the past 12 months, Twitch VTubers generated almost as much viewership as YouTube VTubers, at a ratio of 327M:377M hours watched (46.5%:53.5%). There are still significant differences between how much VTubers contribute to these platforms overall however, with VTuber viewership accounting for 6.3% of all YouTube viewership versus just 1.6% for Twitch.
Looking first at YouTube, we see the same dominance from both Hololive and NIJISANJI among popular VTubers. The most subscribed VTuber is Gawr Gura with 4.5M subscribers on YouTube – a massive 990K subscribers ahead of second place Houshou Marine. While almost every highly subscribed VTuber is Japanese, Gawr Gura is the only English-speaking VTuber on this list (being the exception that proves the rule). Subscriber count doesn’t always line up with viewership, occasionally being higher for VTubers that launched their channels earlier (while not being as popular currently) or who stream less frequently (e.g. only performing live concerts and not making gameplay content).
On Twitch, follower counts are a more reliable measure of overall popularity than subscriber counts (which are paid). The most followed VTuber on Twitch is ironmouse with 2.1M followers – that’s 700K more than Shylily with 1.4M followers. Ironmouse is something of a phenomenon, having recently broken records during Twitch’s SUBtember event in which she became the most subscribed streamer ever on Twitch – that’s including traditional streamers! Ironmouse also embodies two of the defining characteristics of Twitch VTubers compared to YouTube VTubers: Firstly, she is independent (a rare example of an independent VTuber outperforming an agency VTuber), and she is English-speaking (as is every other top 10 most followed VTuber except for Kanae).
It’s clear that a wide range of different VTubers are able to generate large amounts of viewership online, rather than just a select few examples satisfying a particular niche audience. So how do VTubers distinguish themselves from traditional streamers, and what is life on live streaming like for these VTubers?
VTubers are essentially an off-shoot of Japanese idol culture in which performers portray hyper-optimistic onstage personas that cultivate highly dedicated fans. Most VTubers (particularly early VTubers) are even known for their singing, dancing, and 3D concerts (essentially a virtual representation of a live idol concert). Much like Japanese idols, VTubers are essentially reliant upon their agency to make a profit: Agencies provide the tech necessary for top-of-the-line 3D avatars and virtual concerts, not to mention providing VTubers with access to their network of sponsorship connections. How to be a VTuber all depends on work ethic and connections: It’s possible that as technology becomes cheaper and therefore more accessible, VTubers will be less reliant on the safety of an agency to promote themselves (much like singers no longer require representation to break out).
How much VTubers earn varies wildly, with only the top few % of all VTubers generating enough viewership to attract sponsors’ attention. The bulk of a VTuber’s income comes from ad revenue, donations, sponsorships, and merchandise – all routes which depend on massive fanbases to turn a profit, and are therefore inaccessible to new VTubers. This makes smaller VTubers more amenable to sponsorship deals, as sponsors also boost their own profile – for the right product, of course. Loyal fans who are crafty can also create fan-made merch (of which they may later split the profits with their favorite VTuber).
Being a VTuber is an incredibly difficult job, one that requires managing long work hours, meeting agency demands, and maintaining a positive image amidst online mudslinging. As a result, many VTubers often retire or, as it’s known in the VTubing community, “graduate”. VTuber graduation essentially means a performer (the actual human) retiring a VTuber character for any number of reasons (burnout, the end of an agency contract, wanting to adopt a new persona, etc.). Graduating is like the end of a VTuber’s lifecycle, sometimes followed up by “reincarnation” in which the performer adopts a new VTuber personality. Note that it’s frowned upon in the VTuber community to wantonly expose someone’s previous identity.
A famous recent example of reincarnation was VTuber Yuuki Sakuna, the new VTuber personality of famous Hololive creator Minato Aqua. This preceding fame explains how Yuuki Sakuna was able to break records with a peak of 383K viewers upon her debut, despite being a “new” channel. For another example, take English-speaking VTuber Dokibird who received a warm welcome back to streaming earlier this year after a multi-year hiatus. This rebranding of retirement as “graduation” is part and parcel of a VTuber’s celebrity status, with VTuber drama fuelling its own subculture of rumor mills and commentary channels (such as Rima Evenstar’s excellent VTuber news channel).
Like many other streamers, popular VTubers take a hybrid approach to content creation, using big events to command high peak viewerships, then tiding over their fans in the meantime with more easily produced gaming content. As a result, games often provide the bulk of a given VTuber’s airtime and, consequently, their total viewership.
Many of the top games among VTubers match the top games on live streaming in general, including GTA V, League of Legends, and Apex Legends with 127M, 66M, and 41M hours watched each among VTubers over the past 12 months. As we move further down the list though, the games that stand out are more popular in Japan, allow for massive VTuber collaborations, and feature anime aesthetics. Games like Monster Hunter: World (20.1M), Genshin Impact (19.5M), and Palworld (15.6M) all fall under this definition.
These trends make a lot of sense, given the interests of a typical VTuber fan. These games heavily feature roleplaying elements, such as GTA V which thrives on its RP servers – this suits the VTuber community which is entirely composed of performers roleplaying as unique VTuber personalities. Collaboration potential is also highly desirable as VTuber personalities shine brightest when compared to one another. With many of the top VTubers being Japanese, it also makes sense that fans would want to see popular games in that region like Street Fighter 6 (23.5M hours watched).
These trends are also reflected in the top genres among VTubers, including Action Adventure games and Roleplaying games with 278M and 165M hours watched over the past 12 months, respectively. But in third is Non-gaming content, with a significant 144M hours watched, representing a bevy of variety content that VTubers produce alongside regular content. This corresponds to the aforementioned events held by VTubers which, for a given individual stream, is typically their most popular content. VTuber concerts are their bread and butter (often performed alongside a new album release), while talk shows, educational content, storytelling, and personality quizzes are also popular.
Identity and discussions of identity are crucial to a VTuber’s success. The more a VTuber can individuate themselves, the more likely they are to capture a dedicated audience. This means streams where VTubers discuss their backstory (lore), gender, occupation, fears, and so on are incredibly exciting for their fans. Less often, VTubers might also adopt parody personalities that lean more into the roleplaying aspect of VTubers rather than idol culture – like Virtual Obachan, a man who roleplays as a grandma which varies greatly from the mainstream “anime waifu/husbando” VTubers.
As touched on above, different VTubers use different VTuber models to express their personality. Miko Sakura’s pink, cutesy aesthetic suits her happy and carefree personality, whereas Kuzuha’s vampiric appearance suits his more devilish character. In general, almost all VTuber models are built off of an anime aesthetic (due to VTubers’ origins in Japan). This also associates VTubers with games that share this aesthetic, like Genshin Impact or Mahjong Soul.
Many of the most popular VTubers have fully 3D models, making them feel more lifelike which boosts perceived engagement with viewers. For these models, motion capture technology has certainly come a long way since Kizuna AI debuted back in 2016 (considered the “first” VTuber). However, the costs associated with producing and updating 3D VTubers models can be exorbitant – explaining the dependence on agencies for many top VTubers. As a result, 2D VTuber models are a more common entry point for new streamers. Additionally, 2D VTuber models still allow for a great degree of costume and character design – costuming is particularly important given the perceived importance of avatar fashion among younger generations.
Apart from fashion and models, VTubers also vary their presentation through personality. The most popular personalities as self-described by top VTubers are “playful/mischievous”, “energetic/high energy”, and “engages with community”. For an outside observer, this may make the most popular VTubers seem a bit same-y – but these fundamental traits mean that fans are guaranteed light, competitive fun when they tune into their favorite VTubers. As of yet, more diverse VTubers haven’t found mass popularity, like animal VTuber models or even pregnant VTuber models.
With their ever-growing popularity and all-digital appearance, VTubers offer unique opportunities for sponsorships. This is nothing new: VTubers are commonly used for advertising mainstream companies in Japan, like ads for video games that use VTubers (and VTuber models of celebrities) as their spokespeople. But relative to traditional streamers, VTubers are still relatively underutilized. The high engagement of their fanbase makes these viewers more likely to convert into customers. Additionally, really dedicated fans will create user-generated content and clips that circulate within the VTuber community. For a publisher, seeing a VTuber drawn in the style of your games’ characters is an incredible promotion.
As just one example, MOBA Smite teamed up with VTuber agency VShojo back in 2023 to create a series of customized skins for their game. Apart from the initial coverage of the game by the partnered VTubers themselves, fans also subsequently bought these skins to show off with their friends. Combining this kind of marketing with a live-streaming exclusive marketing strategy like a Twitch Drops campaign could lead to even greater exposure.
Some sponsors may be tentative to partner with VTubers represented by major agencies however, due to heavy costs. But smaller VTubers are also fantastic targets for partnerships: They still boast highly engaged fanbases, and in some cases fulfill a more relevant niche for the brand/publisher’s needs. The only issue is finding the right VTuber for your purposes – but this can be massively streamlined thanks to Stream Hatchet’s AI Discovery Tool which identifies the best streamers for influencer marketing campaigns.
With such rapid expansion in the VTuber space, many brands and publishers would do well to educate themselves on VTuber culture. This article merely covers the basics of VTubers – there are so many more creative ways to engage with VTubers, like even putting them into a game itself. As we move further towards embracing the metaverse and legitimizing online personas, VTubers of new forms and with new content styles will pop up and generate viable levels of viewership for profitability. Stream Hatchet will continue to provide insights into advances in the VTuber space.
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