Fortnite streams might be losing steam and Twitch is still the dominant streaming platform, according to a new report from StreamElements. This report, revealed earlier today, points to a few interesting facts about the state of streaming on both Twitch and YouTube Gaming as the market continues to grow.
Streams of the extremely popular Battle Royale game Fortnite peaked on Twitch in July of this year with over 151 million hours watched on the platform. However, the numbers have been dropping ever since, with 20 million fewer hours watched in August, and a further 25 million fewer hours watched in September.
Additionally, the report highlights some “Winners” and “Losers” when it comes to growth on the platforms, with World of Warcraft gaining a massive 232.5% growth, a gain of 87 million hours, in the wake of the launch of the latest expansion. Likewise, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive saw 48 million more hours watched in Q3, a growth of 40.2%. on the flip side, Overwatch saw a dip in viewership to the tune of 18 million hours, which may have coincided with the conclusion of the inaugural season of the Overwatch League.
One of the biggest comparisons comes between Epic Games and Activision/Blizzard, with the latter pairing managing to retake the lead in viewership for the first time since February this year. With five of the top twenty games on Twitch, Activision/Blizzard are a dominant force on the platform, however Epic Games, with its singular title of Fortnite, is still the main competitor.
Speaking of comparisons, Esports still makes up a relatively small portion of viewership on Twitch, with only 9-17% of viewers tuning in to watch the multitude of tournaments available on a daily basis.
Finally, Twitch’s growth doesn’t seem to be centered around the top 100 streamers on the site, but rather the increase appears to be coming from outside that range, with smaller streamers the big winners this quarter.
At the end of the day, regardless of what games you follow, or where you catch the action, streaming is growing at a remarkable rate and we personally can’t wait to see how it all unfolds in the years to come.
