The battle of the streaming services is in full swing. In April 2020, Twitch grew by 100% in view hours compared to the previous year thanks to Valorant and Corona. YouTube (65%) and Facebook (238%) are also thriving in live streaming. Only Mixer is stagnating – and this despite expensive acquisitions like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins and Michael “shroud” Grzesiek.
This is the backstory: In August 2019, the then No.1 streamer from Twitch, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, switched to the Microsoft platform Mixer. It is suspected that Microsoft lured him with a lot of money and good working conditions.
This sparked a kind of competition for top talents in recent months:
- Mixer has attracted more Twitch stars like shroud and KingGothalion
- YouTube launched its offensive and recruited content creators to stream exclusively on their platform. They signed CouRageJD, Valkyrae and recently PewDiePie. They also made a deal with Activision and bought the rights to their e-sports leagues like Overwatch
- Facebook also started recruiting and signed DisguisedToast. They also released a gaming app
- Twitch itself began to provide its top stars with exclusive and presumably lucrative deals, securing streamers like Pokimane, TimTheTatman, Lirik and DrLupo for themselves
These are the latest statistics: StreamElements has now analyzed the new numbers of the streaming services from April 2020. The benchmark for growth compared to the previous year is the “view hours”.
In April 2020, twice as many hours of streaming material were watched as in April 2019:
- Twitch accounts for the lion’s share of this growth. In gaming, viewed hours increased by 98% – including Just Chatting and music even by 101%.
- YouTube (65%) and Facebook (238%) are growing strongly, but at a much lower level.
- Mixer is stagnating (0.2%).
Valorant and Corona drive hours up on Twitch
Why is streaming growing so strong? Expert Doran Nir (Stream Elements) sees the beta release of Valorant as the reason for the boom at Twitch. Anyone who wants to play the new tactical shooter has to watch a Twitch streamer playing Valorant. This relationship between Twitch and Valorant has benefited both partners and driven the numbers up.
Furthermore, Twitch benefits from the lockdowns due to the novel Corona virus Covid-19. As many events have been canceled and many places have restrictions, people are spending more time at home and therefore also watching Twitch. This behavior had already been observed earlier in the year in China, where the viewership for gaming streams rose during the Corona quarantine.
Expert Doran Nir believes Facebook has risen so strongly because they released a gaming app and hosted several tournaments with stars.
What about Mixer? While YouTube and Facebook can grow as major platforms with many users by emphasizing “live streaming,” it seems that Mixer does not fare as well.
The strategy here, to recruit the absolute top talents from Twitch, does not seem to have paid off in April 2020 – at least not in terms of viewed hours.
Although the streaming industry is growing by almost 100% and is becoming an important economic factor through which entertainment companies promote their products, Mixer has hardly grown compared to 2019.
However, Microsoft is now deliberately using its new recruits like streamer shroud as brand ambassadors and is producing cool commercials with him.
