Just Chatting Becomes Twitch’s Biggest Channel

Twitch might be the home of gaming content, but it’s not League or Fortnite that’s the most popular thing on the streaming platform: it’s people just having a chat.

Just Chatting was the most popular category on Twitch for December, according to the latest quarterly and mothly figures release by StreamElements and Arsenal.gg. Viewers watched almost 81 million hours of Just Chatting content on Twitch for December, with League of Legends streams the closest at 74.1 million hours viewed.

Fortnite was substantially behind in third place at 58 million views, with CS:GO and GTA 5 a step behind at 38 million and 36 million hours viewed for the month. The figures also tracked a rise in Escape from Tarkov and Path of Exile, with the former breaking into the top 10 thanks to a Twitch Drops campaign that has seen the game’s popularity rise massively over the last month.

The platforms themselves have remained relatively consistent with the exception of Facebook Gaming. In December 2018, Facebook’s gaming arm was barely above Mixer in the streaming relevancy stakes. It’s still a distant third today behind YouTube Gaming and Twitch, but its market share has more than doubled year-on-year with 8.5 percent market share based on hours watched. (The companies note that non-gaming channels on Twitch and Mixer are not counted for the sake of this slide, a key point to remember given how important non-gaming content is on the platform now.)

“[Facebook Gaming’s rise] had less to do with growing their overall base of streamers and more to do with people watching the existing streamers a lot more and their big name end-of-the-year talent acquisitions,” StreamElements CEO Doron Nir said. “Because all of the platforms have reached a level of parity in terms of performance, acquiring or fostering talent and working with third-party developers to provide those streamers with more means to monetise, engage, and retain their viewers is the blueprint for success.”

Nir added that Twitch is charting a similar route to Amazon, expanding to other types of content while still being a primary destination for gaming streams and content.


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