The battle for talent between Twitch and YouTube Gaming has been a contentious one, but the numbers suggest that YouTube has a long way to go if it wants to truly compete with the established videogame livestreaming juggernaut.
It’s almost unfair to compare the two on a broad scale because of the sheer volume of channels and airtime that Twitch has amassed. So far YouTube’s strategy has been to offer lucrative contracts to key influencers that could potentially turn the tides in their favor over time.
With that in mind, a look at the top end of both platforms could serve as a vehicle for gauging the effectiveness of YouTube’s tactics. In essence, if the top creators that they’ve pulled in can remotely compete with Twitch’s top dogs, the platform could conceivably be on the right track.
Are top YouTube streamers catching up to Twitch?
A quick look at the top YouTube Gaming streamers in 2022 shows that just two of the top 10 most-watched creators on the platform are people that moved from Twitch to YouTube voluntarily.
TimTheTatman, who was among the first big creators to make the switch, boasted 27.6 million hours watched over 1,049.5 hours of airtime. Meanwhile, Ludwig, who swapped over at the end of 2021, had 22.82 million hours watched in 1,128.5 hours of airtime, according to Streams Charts. Dr Disrespect, who moved to YouTube gaming after being banned indefinitely from Twitch, was also on that list with just a shave under 25 million hours watched in about 1,069 hours of airtime.
The top streamer on YouTube was someone that wasn’t pulled from Twitch at all, though. IShowSpeed led the platform with 37 million hours watched despite streaming just 711.7 hours. This gave him a platform-high average of more than 50,000 viewers.
But how does this compare to Twitch? The short answer is—it doesn’t. It doesn’t compare at all.
xQc, who was the most-watched streamer on Twitch in 2022, had more hours watched (224.4 million) than the top eight YouTube Gaming streamers combined (208.35 million) by a wide margin. Meanwhile, his average viewership of 68,125 for the year was about the same as that of Ludwig, TimTheTatman, and Dr Disrespect combined.
It’s not just that Twitch’s biggest creator draws in that much more viewership than YouTube Gaming streamers either. If you take the top YouTube Gaming streamer and try to make similar comparisons with his numbers, you’ll have a tough time finding him in the frenzy of popularly viewed Twitch streams.
There are 38 channels on Twitch that posted more hours watched in 2022 than iShowSpeed. His hours watched total would have placed him just below Lirik, who while popular is never in the conversation for top viewership on the platform.
Even if iShowSpeed had doubled his output, because his airtime is relatively low, he would have barely been among Twitch’s top 10 streamers assuming he maintained his average viewership.
What does all of this mean?
This isn’t to say that it’s all gloom and doom for YouTube Gaming, as people like Ludwig have pointed out, a move to the platform can help creators diversify. Instead of being on the streaming grind all the time, some streamers that have moved over have expanded what they do from a video perspective on the platform.
Ludwig, for instance, has a podcast that he does with his friends, regular video blogs that he posts on one of his alternate channels called Mogul Mail, and he has gone into other business ventures that include hosting events like his chessboxing championship.
Related: Numerous streamers ditched Twitch for YouTube in 2022. But did it pan out?
If you’re looking for YouTube to rapidly take over as the biggest livestreaming platform in gaming, you will likely be disappointed for a while, but as YouTube continues to pluck creators from Twitch, it’s less about the pure livestream viewership and more about the holistic product that YouTube gains from creators gaining more creative freedom.
That isn’t to say that YouTube’s strategy is paying dividends or even that it is working right now, but what it means is that this platform war goes deeper than just looking at live viewership statistics.
