The Battle for Gaming Content: Twitch vs. YouTube
The ongoing platform wars between Twitch and YouTube have resulted in numerous Twitch partnered streamers transitioning to the legacy video hosting platform. YouTube Live Gaming has expanded its exclusive streaming lineup, featuring renowned names such as Ludwig, Sykkuno, FaZe Swagg, Fuslie, and many others. This demonstrates YouTube’s dedication to dominating the gaming space.
While YouTube remains the most popular platform for all types of video and livestreamed content, Twitch still maintains a stronghold when it comes to gaming-related content. According to data from Streams Charts, a StreamElements analytics partner, YouTube’s investment in live gaming content has not yet come close to the success achieved by Twitch in this arena.
YouTube outshines other platforms in terms of overall viewership, accumulating 2.7 billion hours watched in September 2022 alone. However, it lags behind its perpetual competitor, Twitch, in terms of gaming-specific content. This disparity is primarily due to the overwhelming majority of YouTube’s live content being comprised of 24-hour channels, news broadcasts, and other general forms of livestreaming.
One of the most telling indicators of this divide is the fact that YouTube’s biggest streamer isn’t a person. Lofi Girl, a 24-hour music channel, stands as YouTube’s largest livestreaming creator, surpassing ABS-CBN Entertainment, Sky News, and all of YouTube’s gaming livestreamers. In September 2022, Lofi Girl garnered over 18.72 million hours watched across 1,115 hours streamed.
In terms of gaming content, Twitch remains the dominant force. In the same month, Twitch accumulated over 1.8 billion hours watched, while YouTube Live Gaming stood just slightly ahead of Facebook Gaming. With 434 million hours watched of gaming content, YouTube Live Gaming represents only a fraction of YouTube’s overall livestreaming viewership.
Despite some of its top creators departing from the platform, Twitch still faces relatively little competition from other websites such as Afreeca and Trovo. Globally, League of Legends, GTA V, and PUBG maintain their status as the most popular games for livestreaming.
Although YouTube has made efforts to establish its gaming personalities and reimagine the streaming service with creators in mind, it may take some time before YouTube can hope to surpass Twitch. Global streaming numbers for streaming platforms are currently on a downward trajectory. From August to September 2022, Twitch experienced the largest decrease at seven percent, while YouTube Live Gaming saw a marginal decline of one percent.
YouTube and Twitch will continue to compete for the attention of the gaming-focused audience, but for now, Twitch maintains its captivating hold on this segment of viewers.