Minecraft has seen a huge increase in popularity on Twitch since Fortnite: Battle Royale’s season X started. Part of this might not be a coincidence, though, since some Fortnite streamers have started playing Minecraft regularly or are flirting with the game from time to time.
Minecraft’s viewership grew 66 percent in both hours watched and average viewers over the last 30 days, according to Twitch statistics website Sullygnome. People collectively watched over 28 million hours of Minecraft during that period and the game had an average of almost 40,000 people watching across all live channels at any time.
Fortnite season X’s debut on Aug. 1 might have contributed to such an increase. Streamers who were unhappy with the game’s state due to the overpowered robot B.R.U.T.E. started experimenting with other games while live, and the choice of many was Minecraft. They didn’t want to get stomped by the robot or get one-hit killed by its rockets, so they started streaming less Fortnite to instead make Minecraft streams of all kinds.
Big Fortnite streamers like Ali “Myth” Kabbani, Loeya, Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, and Mason “Symfuhny” Lanier have been streaming Minecraft regularly since then. Benjamin “DrLupo” Lupo and Brett “dakotaz” Hoffman have experimented with it as well, but they continue to stream Fortnite most of the time.
Some of these streamers, especially CouRage, said they were angry at Epic for leaving the B.R.U.T.E. power level so high and for not addressing it as an actual gameplay issue, as they saw it. CouRage even quit the Twitch Rivals Fortnite Showdown after being annihilated by one of these mechs.
Other non-Fortnite streamers might also have contributed to the Minecraft growth. Variety streamers Félix “xQc” Lengyel, Michael “shroud” Grzesiek, and Imane “pokimane” have all played the game a few times over the past 30 days, which helped to increase the game’s stats due to their huge viewership.
The decrease of Fortnite’s popularity among streamers during season X might not be the only reason for Minecraft’s growth, but it certainly seems to be related to it. The recent B.R.U.T.E. nerf could make some of these streamers return to Fortnite, which would help us understand how big of an impact they can have on Minecraft’s Twitch viewership.
