The Australian streamer Pestily is currently the most-watched streamer on Twitch by far. And that’s despite the fact that he usually has relatively few viewers. He became a star almost overnight – and this is not the first time it has happened. The reason is the hardcore shooter Escape from Tarkov.
This is the situation:
- Pestily is a mid-sized streamer who attracts an average of 10,000 or fewer viewers over the year.
- Since December 28, 2021, however, he has tens of thousands of viewers – peaking at over 244,000 viewers simultaneously.
- This is because he specializes in Escape from Tarkov, which currently dominates Twitch as the most-watched game by far.
Who is the streamer? Pestily is from Australia and has been in the business since 2017. The former soldier plays and showcases almost exclusively Escape from Tarkov, roughly two-thirds of the time.
On the analysis site sullygnome , Pestily is currently in 1st place on Twitch with almost 7.3 million viewer hours – ahead of Spanish YouTuber and streamer The Grefg and Twitch star xQc. Compared to xQc, Pestily has significantly more viewers in recent days:
- xQc has an average of 76,026 viewers over the past 7 days and peaked at 120,397 (via sullygnome).
- Pestily trumps him with an average of 114,957 viewers and a peak of 244,422 (via sullygnome).
Escape from Tarkov regularly causes a surge for Pestily
This is why he is in 1st place: Pestily is probably the most well-known and biggest streamer for Escape from Tarkov. The hardcore shooter has been giving out so-called “Twitch Drops” every year at the end of the year since 2019.
These reward players for watching streamers with in-game rewards. Therefore, interest in streamers like Pestily is particularly high at the end of the year. He was already able to fight his way to the top of Twitch overnight at the end of 2019 and in early 2020 for the first time.
What’s happening in EFT right now? The developers regularly “wipe” the game, resetting everything to 0. This last happened on December 12, 2021, when the new update 0.12.12 with a new map was released. Together with a 25% price reduction and the drops until January 8, this is currently causing an increase in players.
The player numbers are so high that there are sometimes queues of 86,000 players (via GameStar.de). According to the CEO, however, this is not only due to the surge – they expected that (via Twitter.com).
Rather, the huge update has brought some technical issues that are significantly contributing to the overload of the servers. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of fans and many well-known streamers like shroud and summit1g are currently playing the hardcore shooter. If you also want to get started, we have some tips for you here:
Escape from Tarkov: 13 tips for beginners to help you get started
