State of the Stream 2019: Platform Wars, the New King of Streaming, Most Watched Game and More!
Written by Adam Yosilewitz and Chase
It’s the holiday season, so our gift to you is our State of the Stream report created in partnership with Arsenal.gg.
** Download the full report here **
StreamElements State of the Stream report covers all of the big streaming trends of 2019, such as which live streaming service is winning the platform wars (spoiler: they all are), did talent acquisitions make a difference (not yet), who is the top streamer, which games dominated the charts, the rising popularity of Dungeons & Dragons (no, you haven’t been transported back to the 80’s), and so much more.
Let’s get to it!
Mixer and Facebook Gaming had a good year, while streamers played musical chairs
Mixer and Facebook Gaming both gradually increased their market share by investing in growth all year long prior to their headline-making talent grabs from Twitch, such as Mixer nabbing Ninja, shroud, Ewok, and Gothalion, while Facebook Gaming picked up DisguisedToast, ZeRo, NexxuzHD, and Lolito FDEZ. These moves might not have moved the needle in the short term, but are expected to have a bigger impact in the years to come.
Twitch made some moves of their own, such as taking Nick Eh 30 from YouTube and locking in DrLupo, TimTheTatman, and LIRIK with extended contracts. Not to be left out of the fun, YouTube swiped CourageJD and Lachlan from Twitch.
Now that the major streaming platforms have reached parity when it comes to basic infrastructure, the focus is all on content.
Every platform grew this year, some more than others
While Twitch and YouTube Gaming lost a little market share, the total number of viewership hours grew for everyone. It was Facebook Gaming and Mixer that grew viewership hours the most, though. Their numbers illustrate that building a community is a layered approach. It takes a strong talent-driven content strategy, top-of-the-line tech with compelling features and the ability to scale, a community of third party devs, and — to ensure streamers can make a living doing what they love — the platforms need revenue opportunities for creators from audiences and brands.
For Twitch’s entire existence, League of Legends was the most popular game until Fortnite took the title last year. Guess who’s back on top?
The top 10 games shared most of the same titles as last year, but the big story is the top spot.
Riot Games’ League of Legends took back the #1 position thanks to Fortnite’s drop in hours rather than League’s own growth (7%). Despite the successful launch of Fortnite Chapter 2 and the Fortnite World Cup Finals, Fortnite had the biggest year-over-year drop among the top games. Its 27% drop amounted to 336M hours. Don’t cry for them yet…if they continue to release new content and host competitive events, they will remain one of the biggest games around.
Apex Legends led the pack of new games
Whenever a new battle royale comes along, we’ve seen it dominate the charts. We saw it with PUBG, then with Fortnite, and now with Apex Legends. While Apex Legends landed near the bottom of the overall top 10 games chart, in terms of new games (which includes new IPs as well as new franchises within existing IPs), it had almost double the hours watched as the next runner-up.
Also of note is Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima’s first game since leaving Konami. It got 20 million viewership hours which is strong considering the game launched in November and is a PlayStation 4 exclusive until it comes to PC next year.
The growth of Just Chatting and ASMR shows that what gamers really want to do is talk
Just Chatting, the live vlogging category once known as IRL, continues to chart a steady uphill path toward the #2 category on the top games chart (and yes, we know it is not a game, but calling it a “top categories” chart when the rest are games sounds even weirder). The steady upward momentum makes this the most exciting juggernaut to track year-over-year as it reshapes the games-only identity of Twitch circa 2014 into a much broader destination.
Although ASMR does not have the same momentum as Just Chatting, it has reached some solid heights ranging from 2.4 million to 3.1 million hours watched each month with Amouranth leading the pack.
Tfue was not only the most popular streamer on Twitch this year, he was the most popular streamer in the space
The list of top 10 streamers was dominated by one person: Tfue. The professional Fortnite player even took a small break in 2019, but it didn’t stop him from getting 87 million viewership hours for the year.
Tfue was not the only success story. When Blizzard launched World of Warcraft Classic, Asmongold was the top streamer on Twitch 3 months in a row.
You don’t have to speak English to be a success on Twitch as four Korean-language streamers crack the female streamer top 10 list
Illustrating that Twitch is indeed a global platform, four of the top 10 female streamers broadcast in Korean. This includes Saddummy, the #1 female streamer on the list with over 20 million hours watched. She predominately streams in the Just Chatting category.
The list of top streamers on Twitch is an international smorgasbord of talent
Given how popular streaming is all over the world you don’t need to stream in English to find an audience. Portuguese, Korean, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese language streams all got millions of viewership hours in 2019 with this list representing the top streamers in each language.
Portuguese language streamer gaules also happens to be the only non-English speaking streamer to crack the overall top 10 streamer list.
Dungeons & Dragons, World of Warcraft Classic, and GTA 5 are surprisingly/not surprisingly popular again
Since Grand Theft Auto V came out in 2013, World of Warcraft in 2004, and Dungeons & Dragons dates back to 1974, why are we talking about them today?
Blame streamers for their resurgence.
GTA V had wandered some way down the charts until some of the biggest streamers started role-playing with in-game characters turning it into an all-new experience for many. Nostalgia helped propel World of Warcraft up the charts, but with skilled gamers and entertainers like Asmongold playing it, fans had streamers to rally around. D&D’s resurgence on Twitch dates back to 2010, which you can read about here. Nowadays, all the cool kids play it since it offers a lot of opportunities for engaging role-playing just like GTA V.
No report would be complete without a list of top streaming events and big milestones
And before we go, this report wouldn’t have been possible without Arsenal.gg providing the data which shaped our narrative.
