Stream Hatchet: Video Games Streaming in Q1 2023
People are switching from watching streams to other activities in the last two years.
The number of watched hours is declining for the second year straight. In Q1 2022 was a decline of 6%. Now - by 16% to Q1 2022.
However, if we compare the number of watched hours with Q1 2019, we’ll see an increase of 46%.
In Q1 2023 Twitch expanded its market share from 70% in Q1 2022 to 74%. YouTube Live Gaming is growing too - from 13% in Q1 2022 to 15% in Q1 2023. Facebook Live is not feeling so strong, it lost market share from 9% in Q1 2022 to 3% this year’s first quarter. This allowed AfreecaTV to become the third streaming platform in the world with 4% of the audience.
League of Legends (422M watched hours), Grand Theft Auto V (397M watched hours), and Valorant (310M watched hours) are leaders in Q1 2023.
Hogwarts Legacy in the first week (and 3 days of early access) got 69.3M hours watched. The game set a record for the number of simultaneous users for a single-player game - 1.28M people have been watching it.
Resident Evil 4 received 27.3M hours watched in the first week; Sons of the Forest - 27.2M. Dead Space is #4 with 10.4M hours watched. Atomic Heart got 9.5M hours.
The Last of Us series release positively affected the franchise gaming streams. The number of viewers increased by 106%, and the hours watched - by 107%.
Are there any theories for the reason in the declining watch hours? I would think that business is booming, but are gamers more interested in long-form reviews/essays or well-edited playthrough clips? Those are my preferences and why I don't watch others stream. I want just enough information to make a purchase decision and then experience the game for myself.