Gaming has become much more popular than in the past. Along with that is the rise of watching gamers play. In fact, it has become so popular that game videos and streams get more viewers than some TV channels!

Game videos and streams get more viewers than TV channels!

Nowadays, a lot of people’s hobbies turn out to be watching other people playing games. According to SuperData’s researchers, the audience of video gaming content may be up to 665 million people. Not stopping there, that number is expected to grow even more, with 21% increase predicted from now until 2021. Surprisingly, the number exceeds those who watch the most famous TV channels as well, like HBO, Netflix, ESPN and Hulu! Netflix’s number of subscribers are about 100 million, while that of Hulu’s is about 12 million. For comparison, PewDiePie alone has over 54 million subscribers on his YouTube channel!

However, it is not really surprising, considering the fact that Netflix is not even available in China now, which is the biggest market in the world. Because of that, it is easily thwarted by other free streaming videos from around the world. YouTube, Twitch, and similar venues for streaming has brought gaming videos to an all-time popularity not seen ever before. Any doubt of this should have gone away now. One interesting note is that 54% of the audience for game streaming are males, while the rest are females.

Further results also suggest that gamers who watch streams and gaming videos usually have higher income the other types of gamers. PC and console players who watch gaming video contents tend to spend more than $70 a month on games and DLCs/expansions. That is 56% more than non-viewer gamers. Among the games, League of Legends seems to have the most watcher, with 100 million hours in February alone. At second place is CS: GO with 40 million hours. Twitch, even though it only has 16% of the audience, earns 37% of gaming video contents. The revenue from gaming videos and streams is predicted to reach $4.6 billion this year!

Gaming videos and streams are getting more popular

It is no doubt that gaming videos and streams are gaining a lot of attentions now, more than ever. Hopefully this rise in popularity will result in more high quality contents. Do you watch other people play games?