Twitch saw a big upswing in October, reaching its highest point of the last five months with 1.9 billion hours watched, while Facebook Gaming continues to grow with a marked 61 percent year-over-year growth since October 2020 at 521 million hours watched, according to Rainmaker, StreamElements’ analytics partner.
For Twitch, the big jump in viewership came largely from the MOBA categories, as both League of Legends and Dota 2 hosted their biggest events of the year and recorded a growth of 98 percent and 189 percent in hours watched compared to September.
Between The International 10 and Worlds 2021, the top four channels on Twitch throughout October each featured one of Dota or League. Dota brought in a total of 97 million hours watched during the month, while League nearly caught up with Just Chatting, finishing with 205 million hours watched and as the second most-watched category on Twitch.
CS:GO and FIFA 22 were the only other categories to see a bump in viewership, while Amazon’s MMO New World maintained its strong position from October, holding down fifth place at 83 million hours watched.
For individual channels, Gaules took xQc’s crown, squeaking past the king of Twitch and recording around 19 million hours watched. German variety streamer xRohat also broke into the top 10 at around seven million hours watched, thanks to a mix of Grand Theft Auto V and streaming while he was sleeping as long he continued to get new subscribers, essentially daring his viewers to keep watching or he would end his broadcast.
That was all blown out of the water by the official Riot Games channel, LCK_Korea, and both the English and Russian broadcasts for TI10, which recorded 36 million, 25 million, and a combined 44 million hours watched.
You can read the full statistical report, including a look at the growth of VTubers like ironmouse and veibae on Twitch, on the official StreamElements blog.
