Surge in Streamers, Viewers During Lockdowns

COVID-19 lockdowns have forced many to stay home from the office, while also closing schools early and causing others to lose their jobs. An increase in more personal time has led to a surge in game streaming, particularly on the popular Twitch platform.

According to data collected from TwitchTracker, the number of total hours streamed on the platform nearly doubled from February to May. With roughly 980 million hours watched in February, May obliterated that mark with over 1.7 billion hours. The average number of viewers and total active streamers on Twitch has also roughly doubled, going from around 1.4 million viewers and 3.8 million streamers in February to 2.4 million viewers and 7.4 million streamers in May.

The increase in activity has been felt across the entire game streaming industry, with YouTube Gaming, Facebook Gaming and Mixer all seeing substantial boosts to their user base. In a time where many around the world are staying home, the amount of time available to watch streams and to create content has risen dramatically.

TwitchTracker also shows while Saturday and Sunday remain the most popular days for viewership and content, during COVID-19 lockdowns, the gap between weekend and week day viewership has closed significantly. Currently, the average number of viewers is around 1.9 million on Saturday and Sunday, while each week day has around 1.7-1.8 million average number of viewers.