Game Streaming Slowdown: Twitch, YouTube Gaming See Decrease In Hours Watched In 2022

Live game streaming watch time has decreased 13.5% YoY, from 34 billion hours watched in 2021 to 29.5 billion in 2022, according to Stream Hatchet.

However, this number is still up 6% from 2020 and 164% from 2018.

The data intelligence company based in Barcelona, Spain, arrived at the conclusion that this decrease is driven predominately by Facebook Gaming declines, as Meta META’s game streaming platform suffered a drop in hours watched of 56% YoY from 202.

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The number of unique channels live streaming across the major platforms is also down about 14%, which could be a sign of streamer burnout.

But what about Amazon AMZN’s Twitch and Google GOOGL’s YouTube Gaming?

Twitch is, by far, the most-used live streaming platform in the West, and the one that experienced a mild drop in viewership, decreasing from 24.3 B hours watched in 2021 to 22.8 B hours watched in 2022 (6% drop YoY).

Meanwhile, YouTube Gaming, the second most popular streaming platform, experienced a drop of 9% YoY, going from 5 billion hours watched in 2021 to 4.5 billion in 2022.

GTA V, League Of Legends, And Valorant: The 3 Most Watched Video Games Of The Year

• Take-Two Interactive TTWO’s Grand Theft Auto V has been holding the title of the most-watched video game on streaming platforms since the fourth quarter of 2020. In 2022, the action-adventure game got watched 1.82 billion hours.
• Tencent TCEHY’s League of Legends got a close second place with 1.77 billion hours watched, and Riot Games' Valorant came third with 1.30 billion hours watched.

The rest of the games that make up the top 10 most streamed games are the following (in order):

• EA EA’s Apex Legends
• Microsoft MSFT’s Minecraft
• Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• Epic Game’s Fortnite, Valve’s Dota 2
• Montoons’ Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and
• Activision-Blizzard ATVI’s Call of Duty: Warzone.

See Also: 6 Famous Gaming Streamers Who Left Twitch For YouTube

Breaking Barriers: Female Representation Rises On Live Streaming Platforms

Another interesting highlight of the report is that female representation increased on live-streaming platforms.

YouTube Gaming now leads the way for the greatest number of female live-streaming creators in their top 1000 channels with 13.6%, up from 8.3% in 2021. Facebook Gaming also saw an increase of almost 5% to 12.2%.

The number of female-led channels on Twitch, however, has remained relatively the same at 11.6%, as the percentage of female creators only grew by 0.3%.

Despite the persistent disparity between male and female live-streaming creators, this growth is a significant accomplishment, particularly given the general decrease in live-streaming viewership in 2022.

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Image Credits: koblizeek and Gorodenkoff on Shutterstock and YouTube Gaming on Wikimedia Commons