WhenAmazon purchased Twitch for almost one billion dollarsin 2014, it reflected the growing popularity of the livestreaming platform as watching other people play video games became a common pastime. But few may have expectedTwitchto overtake other media giants.
According to a new report from industry analysis firm SuperData Research,Twitchnow has a larger audience than HBO or even Netflix. In 2016, 185 million people tuned in to gaming streams on Twitch, in comparison to HBO’s 130 million viewers and Netflix’s 93 million. The amount of Twitch viewers is expected to grow significantly this year, too, with SuperData estimating that viewership will rise to 212 million.
It stands to reason that Twitch’s revenue will increase over the coming months too. After Twitch, the second biggest platform for gaming video content is YouTube, which saw 517 million viewers on gaming videos in 2016 and is expected to reach 563 million this year.
YouTube does have the upper-hand on Twitch because so many people visit the site already to view non-gaming content, and accessing Let’s Plays, game trailers, and commentary is just a click away. However,gaming YouTubers have concerns about their earnings. The platform, which is owned by Google parent company Alphabet, has made some major changes to the way that ad revenue works and the way that videos can be monetized, with some creators choosing to leave the site as a result.
If major players were to leave YouTube then their legions of fans would follow. If those YouTubers were to find a new home in Twitch, for example, then come next year the livestreaming platform could be a lot bigger than even SuperData had predicted.
