Twitch has had its ups and downs this year. It got a new CEO, one who’s putting in a lot more face time with creators, and it’s made some long-asked-for improvements, like introducing more discoverability features and relaxing its simulcast rules. But it’s also made baffling policy decisions that upset streamers and drove measurable traffic to burgeoning competitors like Kick.
Despite that, though, it’s closing out the year with its highest watch numbers so far: In November, people watched 57.5 million hours of stream per day, according to data from Rainmaker.gg included in StreamElements‘ latest State of the Stream report. That’s up from 57.2 million in October, and is the highest amount of daily viewership for Twitch all year.
At the same time, monthly hours watched dropped slightly, going from 1.774 billion in October to 1.727 billion in November (which is one day shorter than October, so that did affect numbers a bit).
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As for which creators are bringing in the most viewership, xQc has finally been knocked from the #1 spot.
For the past three years, he’s been Twitch’s most-watched streamer, but this year, he was overtaken by three people: Kai Cenat, who’s #1 with 109 million hours of watch time; Gaules, with 106 million hours; and ibai, with 106 million hours. xQc is in fourth place, with 89 million hours.
Cenat snatching top spot isn’t all that surprising considering his channel alone accounted for 2.5% of all global watch hours on Twitch in February.
Others in the top 10 were: fps_shaka at #5 with 71 million hours watched; tarik, #6, 70 million; HasanAbi, #7, 61 million; eliasn97, #8, 60 million; IlloJuan, #9, 56 million; and handongsuk, #10, with 54 million hours watched.
Top categories and games remained pretty stable from the past couple years. Most-watched category was Just Chatting with 2.863 billion hours watched over the course of 2023, and most-watched game was League of Legends with 1.228 billion hours watched. Other top contenders: Grand Theft Auto V (1.175 billion), Valorant (916 million), Minecraft (536 million), CS:GO (527 million), Dota 2 (515 million), Fortnite (490 million), WoW (399 million), and Apex Legends (357 million).
What will 2024 bring for Twitch? If it can keep on giving creators the features and tools they’ve wanted for years, maybe it’ll see a continuing rise in daily hours watched. But if it introduces more policy changes that are ill thought out, undefined, or quickly reversed, it may see more streamers seeking pastures that appear greener.
