YouTube Gaming hit 8.8 billion hours of watchtime in 2025

2025 was YouTube Gaming‘s biggest year yet, according to data from Stream Hatchet.

When we talk about gaming and livestreaming, the conversation still inevitably turns to Twitch, which holds the lion’s share of both broadcast and viewing hours for live gaming creators. Multiple creators have talked about how YouTube doesn’t seem to put as much stock into developing features for live content as it does for long-form and Shorts–but, that being said, gaming is one of the its most robust genres, and we’ve been hearing creators across platforms say how livestreams are a key element of their content plans for 2026 and beyond.

Stream Hatchet is a data analytics firm owned by GameSquare, the company that also owns FaZe Esports and just acquired BENlabs’ TubeBuddy. Its latest report combed through YouTube Gaming’s last 12 months and declared 2025 “one of the platform’s most significant growth years to date.”

YouTube Gaming reached a total of 8.8 billion hours watched in 2025, which was a 12% year over year jump from 2024. That figure makes it accountable for 25% of gaming livestream hours on the internet–meaning that for every four hours of gaming streams consumed, at least one hour is on YouTube.

Stream Hatchet found that the highest amount of viewership is coming from Japan: 451 million hours. That makes sense, as Japanese streamers tend to go with YouTube over Twitch, and bring their audiences with them. Worth noting: There’s also high viewership from Korea (130M hours) which, again, makes sense, because Twitch cut services there in 2023, blocking all Korean streamers from having a presence on its platform.

The second-highest amount of viewership comes, predictably, from the U.S. Stateside viewers racked up 307 million hours of watch time across the year. India came in third, with 194 million hours.

More viewer demos: Stream Hatchet found that 82% of YouTube Gaming viewers are male, and the largest contingent, 36%, are ages 25-29.

As for what all these viewers are watching, Roblox brought the most watch hours (425 million), followed by League of Legends (421M), Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (412M), Counter-Strike (342M), Grand Theft Auto V (261M), Valorant (221M), Minecraft (279M), Battlegrounds Mobile India (209M), and Fortnite (170M).

Those titles probably won’t surprise you; Roblox and Minecraft are major staples of YouTube content, and mobile game viewership is huge in Asia and India.

While this growth is impressive–and corroborates what Streams Charts reported about 2025, namely that YouTube Gaming is growing (and Twitch is falling)–what we’re paying the most attention to is the ripple effects.

As gaming streamers go live and get more viewership on YouTube, they’re also posting more Shorts and snagging sponsorships for their streams.

Stream Hatchet found that in 2025, YouTube saw three consecutive quarters of growth in the amount of gaming-related Shorts posted, peaking at 6.15 million videos in August. Q4 2025 also brought the highest amount of viewership for sponsored gaming streams (4.5 million hours) since 2020, when digital content was universally bolstered by COVID lockdowns.

“The continued acceleration of YouTube Gaming underscores a fundamental shift in how global audiences consume content and how brands engage with next-generation fans,” Justin Kenna, GameSquare’s CEO, said in a statement. “With 8.8 billion hours watched in 2025 and a meaningful resurgence in sponsored streams, we are seeing a clear validation of creator-led, digital-native media.”