We have compiled a list of truly amazing statistics about the stunning growth in gaming, streaming, and competitive esports.
The snippets below are excerpts from a variety of gaming sources as listed below. These reports show how far gaming has come and they provide insights into the future of gaming viewership worldwide.
The sources are as follows:
- Twitch TV Analytics
- NewZoo, a leading global provider of games and esports analytics:
- Sensor Tower, a trusted source of market intelligence in the mobile app ecosystem.
- Sullygnome, providing statistics and analytic service for Twitch
- Grand View Research is used by Fortune 500 companies to understand the global business environment
Live Streaming Audience Growth – From NewZoo
Gaming goes far beyond playing and social engagement. Viewership is also an essential part of the pastime. To that end, the esports and live-streaming markets have seen massive success in 2021. And there are more esports fans in 2021 than ever before:
- 465.1 million people watch esports (up +6.7% year on year)
- 235.5 million of these are occasional viewers (watch less once a month)
- The remaining 229.6 million are esports enthusiasts (once a month or more)
Game Live-Streaming Engagement in 2021
We are quickly closing in on 1 billion people watching live-streamed gaming content. 2021 marked a landmark year for live streaming, which broke all viewership records set the year before. Again, 2020 was a particularly big year for streaming due to the pandemic. But the audience continued to grow, +12.7% year on year to 747 million people in 2021.
Looking at each platform:
- Twitch generated 23.3 billion hours of live viewership so far in 2021, an all-time high for the platform.
- YouTube generated 4.5 billion hours so far in 2021.
- Facebook Gaming, which we started tracking in April 2021, generated 3.5 billion hours from then until now.
Most Watched Games – From Twitch TV Analytics
Most Watched Games on Twitch past 365 days
- Grand Theft Auto – 1.87 Billion hours
- League of Legends – 1.73 Billion hours
- Fortnite – 965 Million hours
- Valorant – 951 Million hours
- Minecraft – 863 Milion hours
- Call of Duty: Warzone – 850 Million hours
- CS:GO – 767 Million hours
- Apex Legends – 690 Million hours
- Dota 2 – 578 Million hours
- Escape from Tarkov – 403 Million hours
Mobile Gaming Growth – From Sensor Tower
A record-breaking eight mobile games including PUBG Mobile from Tencent, Honor of Kings from Tencent, and Genshin Impact from miHoYo have generated more than $1 billion globally from the App Store and Google Play so far in 2021, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data shows.
Billion-Dollar Battleground
PUBG Mobile, localized as Game For Peace in China and Battlegrounds Mobile in India, and Honor of Kings rank as the No. 1 and No. 2 revenue-generating mobile titles worldwide this year, accumulating $2.8 billion each so far this year, up 9 percent and 14.7 percent year-over-year, respectively.
Ranking at No. 3 this year is Genshin Impact, which has stormed to $1.8 billion in revenue so far in 2021. Launched on September 28, 2020, publisher miHoYo has continued to provide the game with a plethora of updates, regularly adding new islands, characters, and features to keep players engaged. September’s Version 2.1 release showed just how effective these updates can be, with its launch sparking a five times increase in player spending week-over-week. To date, Genshin Impact has generated $2.4 billion worldwide from the App Store and Google Play.
Most Followers for Twitch Streamers – From SullyGnome
Channels with the highest followers which streamed on Twitch in the past 365 days
Predicted Growth in Esports Market – From Grand View Research
Finally, we have a report from Grand View Research that predicts the size of the esports market 5 years into the future:
The global esports market size was valued at USD 1.1 billion in 2019 and is expected to expand at a growth rate of 24.4% from 2020 to 2027. The increasing audience reach and engagement activities, formidable investments, rising live streaming of games, and increasing infrastructure for the league tournaments are key factors driving the market growth.
The professionalization in the industry has created lucrative opportunities for game developers, gamers, influencers, and event organizers. Millennials are considering esports as a professional career owing to the increase in popularity of the gaming tournaments, impressive international prize pools, streaming revenues, and one-to-one sponsorships. Moreover, universities and colleges are starting a dedicated esports curriculum to develop skilled professionals.
