The total number of hours viewed on the live streaming portal, Twitch, fell 7% month-on-month in April, according to new figures from the latest StreamElements publication. Some 1.64 billion hours of content were live streamed to users worldwide.
The StreamElements report published in April said that March’s total viewing hours was 1.56 billion, but this has since been revised up to 1.77 billion. Consequently, viewing figures are down 7% in the space of a few weeks. The number of hours live streamed daily also fell 5% month-on-month from 57 million to 55 million.
One of the main reasons that viewing figures declined so much is due to the lack of new headline video game releases. In addition, Twitch has suspended its services in South Korea, which didn’t go down well with the South Korean telecommunications watchdog KCC. This has resulted in only regular, loyal viewers continuing to tune in to watch their favourite games being played by top streaming personalities and even professional eSports players.
Fallout game titles have moved up the rankings in the UK and Europe but aren’t even registering inside the Top 10 most-watched categories on Twitch. Grand Theft Auto 5 is currently the leading game for viewers to watch, with 128 million hours of content viewed in April, followed by the likes of Counter-Strike GO, Fortnite, and League of Legends.
Rust was one of only two video game titles which saw an uptick in hours streamed in April. According to StreamElements’ co-founder, Or Perry, this was due to a “massive update” released by Rust’s producers, attracting 27 million hours of views.
Other popular forms of Twitch content streamed live
It’s not just video gaming that people tune into Twitch for. As a matter of fact, there are several niches which also fare well on the platform, both from an entertainment and educational perspective. The first being live music. A growing number of artists and bands are choosing to live stream their performances to a global audience. It’s particularly popular among DJs, who may live stream their mixes, broadcast live from their own studios or from the live venues themselves.
You only have to visit the Music section of Twitch to discover the eclectic range of live music streams up for grabs, ranging from house, electric and drum and bass to live singing performances. Some of the major summer music festivals are increasingly streaming live sets to Twitch, with Barcelona’s Primavera Sound doing so this month.
Other forms of online pastimes and entertainment are proving for popular on Twitch too, not least online poker. The reasons that thousands of streamers tune into online poker channels are two-fold – they like to follow the leading online poker professionals on their journey into the biggest tournaments and events. Secondly, they use the channels as a form of education and improving their own poker strategies.
There is an official Twitch channel accessible from PokerStars’ homepage, which is one of the longest-running online poker rooms, offering a range of competitive events every week. Some of the ambassadors of PokerStars, such as Lex Veldhuis, now have their own dedicated Twitch channels streaming online PokerStars tournaments too.
Elsewhere in the Twitch directory, there’s also a ‘Creative’ category, which offers live streams on all kinds of niches. Whether it’s software and game development, artistry, cooking or crafting, these channels focus on delivering entertaining yet educational content to inspire users to develop their own skills and interests.
Within the Game Development section, there are live streams from professional developers, showcasing how to design and redesign games in certain programming languages such as C++.
Another aspect of Twitch is the ‘Just Chatting’ category, where live streamers simply interact with their live viewers in real time. In essence, some of the Just Chatting streams have gone on to become live radio broadcasts or podcasts thanks to their respective personalities and the unique content they provide.
The elephant in the room regarding Twitch is that it’s experienced a steady decline in viewership over multiple years now. In January this year, Twitch’s CEO, Dan Clancy, admitted that the platform is still a loss-maker and remains heavily reliant on Amazon’s funding to survive. Many within the industry believe the user experience needs a radical overhaul to help it compete with the likes of YouTube in terms of stream discoverability.