In February 2022, Felix “xQc” Lengyel was no longer the biggest streamer on Twitch. Even Asmongold only made it to 3rd place. Thanks to the tremendous success of Lost Ark and Elden Ring, the channel “Fextralife” managed to take the number 1 spot in viewer hours on Twitch. However, doubts are now arising whether they truly belong at the top.
Who was the biggest Twitch streamer recently? With over 24 million watched hours, xQc was comfortably the biggest streamer on Twitch in January 2022.
He streamed like a berserker in January, logging 315 hours. That’s over 10 hours per day, excluding Sundays and holidays.
The Canadian averaged 77,000 viewers. xQc mainly showcased GTA-5 roleplay, League of Legends, Escape from Tarkov, or chatted with fans.
xQc had little love for the hyped Lost Ark:
Twitch channel of a wiki network surpasses all other streamers
Who is the biggest now?
- In February 2022, the channel “Fextralife” is in 1st place. They streamed for 368 hours (13.14 hours per day) and averaged 56,000 viewers. Thus, they were on air for 80 hours longer than xQc in February, but had about 17,000 fewer viewers on average.
- In 3rd place in February is Asmongold, who had significantly more viewers than the competition (105,000 on average) but was also on air much less (“only” 180 hours).
- While xQc continued to mainly show GTA5 and added 41 hours of Elden Ring, Fextralife and Asmongold were totally in the “Lost Ark” craze. Asmongold streamed the MMORPG for 118 hours, while Fextralife showed it for 272 hours. Both Fextralife and Asmongold had recently turned to Elden Ring.
It can thus be said that Lost Ark, and to a lesser extent Elden Ring, determined who became the biggest streamer on Twitch in February 2022.
Top channel accused of practicing “legal viewbotting”
What is the “problem” with Fextralife? Fextralife is not a single streamer like xQc or Asmongold. Fextralife is a “wiki network and blog” run by gamers. They have several personalities that stream – like Cas, Tyr, Yuria (featured image) and Fex.
This is already an advantage, as the burden of streaming 368 hours a month does not fall on one person but is spread across several people.
If the barricade in Zagoras falls in Lost Ark, one can certainly cheer:
Essentially, Fextralife operates a collection of 150 wikis with information on all sorts of games, from Dark Souls to Camelot Unchained, to The Elder Scrolls Online, Elden Ring, or Lost Ark.
Twitch streams embedded small on wiki pages
Fextralife apparently utilizes these wikis to their advantage, as YouTube streamer Ludwig critically observes.
Ludwig had already expressed his surprise about Fextralife during the release of New World, 5 months ago. He noticed that Fextralife was streaming for 24 hours straight and had 60,000 viewers, but there was hardly any chat interaction on their channel.
For Fextralife’s pattern, the term “legal viewbotting” has now emerged. Other content creators, like Hasan Abi and Devin Nash, have also addressed this in their videos.
Large complex games support the wiki approach
What’s behind it: It is actually unusual for a channel like Fextralife to be so high up on Twitch, as a “shared channel” actually also has disadvantages. The personal connection to a single streamer is then lacking; perhaps you prefer one host over the other. The “personal-authentic” aspect, which Twitch is all about, is lost with such a model.
However, Fextralife’s wiki approach seems to balance that out. At least when games are currently in hype that call for “wikis” because they are as deep and complex as Lost Ark and Elden Ring.
Therefore, Fextralife’s rise is apparently closely linked to the interest in complex games like Lost Ark and Elden Ring. It is understandable that individual streamers look on this model with a grumbling feeling:
WoW loses the throne – After more than 5 years, Twitch has a new biggest MMORPG
He then found out that Fextralife had embedded their Twitch stream on every subpage of their wiki for Dark Souls. He saw that as “farming” views:
If you look something up, for example, Dark Souls guide, then they have a wiki. And on every single page of the wiki, their stream is embedded, so that counts as a view. […] I don’t know if that’s okay or not. But it’s not a good thing for Twitch, because they’re getting all the new viewers from New World, as they all go to Fextralife and not to one of the smaller streamers.
This behavior was also discussed on reddit. Here, it was concluded that while it’s not illegal, as Fextralife remains within permissible dimensions. It is a “gray area” – for embedded streams on well-visited pages give streamers a significant boost compared to those who do not have these opportunities.
For Fextralife’s pattern, the term “legal viewbotting” has now emerged. Other content creators, like Hasan Abi and Devin Nash, have also addressed this in their videos.
Large complex games support the wiki approach
What’s behind it: It is actually unusual for a channel like Fextralife to be so high up on Twitch, as a “shared channel” actually also has disadvantages. The personal connection to a single streamer is then lacking; perhaps you prefer one host over the other. The “personal-authentic” aspect, which Twitch is all about, is lost with such a model.
However, Fextralife’s wiki approach seems to balance that out. At least when games are currently in hype that call for “wikis” because they are as deep and complex as Lost Ark and Elden Ring.
Therefore, Fextralife’s rise is apparently closely linked to the interest in complex games like Lost Ark and Elden Ring. It is understandable that individual streamers look on this model with a grumbling feeling:
WoW loses the throne – After more than 5 years, Twitch has a new biggest MMORPG
