The most colossal increase? For the first time in the streaming website’s history, Twitch surpassed three billion hours watched in a single quarter - in other words, within the first three months of 2020. The reports also indicate that all platforms experienced a significant boost in hours watched from February to March, surprising no one.
Streamlabs’ report tracks the metrics of four game-streaming services and compares them. Twitch has come out the victor in all of the tracked categories, which include Total Hours Watched, Total Hours Streamed, and Unique Channels. The final category does reveal some competition from Microsoft’s streaming service, Mixer, but it still falls short of Twitch’s high to the tune of about 20%.
The report also details the top streamed games, publishers, and esports from the quarter, with League of Legends, Fortnite, and Twitch’s “Just Chatting” category for vlogging coming out on top. These categories are still going strong into April based on Twitchstats’ information, although Animal Crossing: New Horizons did manage to briefly eclipse LoL right after its launch.
These record-breaking numbers likely aren’t going away anytime soon. With many projected to be staying at home until May at the earliest, one can only imagine what Q2’s numbers will look like following the first quarter’s massive increases. As more and more people search for ways to kill time, streaming platforms like Twitch are going to see a lot of extra traffic - and a lot of new users who might stick around for more even as things slow down. Streamers will likely see a lot more viewers and subs, while viewers can expect to have quite a backlog to watch if they keep up with more than a handful of channels.
