Twitch Retrospective
Twitch Retrospective
Twitch Retrospective
2013 Retrospective
13
at the stats, stars and trends of the worlds leading video platform and community for gamers
AN IN-DEPTH LOOK
03
OVERVIEW
02
13
Call of Duty: Black Ops II gets Twitch Enabled
VENTUREBEAT Black Ops II launched with the ability to broadcast gameplay to YouTube. By expanding this feature to Twitch, Treyarch will reach a more dedicated audience of gamers.
05
MAY
MARCH
JANUARY
} FEBRUARY
Twitch unveils Turbo, its First Premium Subscription Product
THE WASHINGTON POST Video platforms like Twitch historically make most of their money from display advertising, but its no secret that users arent always eager to sit through commercialsparticularly when they interfere with live programming. Offering another tier of the service, much in the way Hulu does, lets Twitch pay its advertisers without annoying its audience.
12,000,000,000
MINUTES WATCHED
per month
DOUBLED SINCE 2012
} APRIL
Twitch Wins its 2nd Webby Award
The massive growth of Twitch demonstrates the huge appetite for alternative ways of viewing, playing and celebrating games, and we are delighted that the Webby Awards have recognized our place at the heart of online gaming culture. Emmett Shear
CEO, Twitch
45,000,000
UNIQUE VIEWERS
per month
GREW FROM 20 MILLION UNIQUE VIEWERS IN 2012
} JUNE
Twitch Opens Developer Program for Game Developers and Announces Twitch Media Group
6,000,000
TOTAL VIDEOS BROADCAST
per month
DOUBLED SINCE 2012
04
900,000+
COMPARED TO 300K IN 2012
UNIQUE BROADCASTERS
per month
PARTNERED CHANNELS
MINUTES WATCHED
per user per day
106
07
NOVEMBER
5100+
SEPTEMBER
JULY
} AUGUST
PlayStation 4 Integration Unveiled at gamescom
GAMEINFORMER Twitch On PlayStation 4 Makes Brilliant Innovations. While the [PS4] interface looks familiar, it offers streamlined usability not before seen on consoles.
} OCTOBER
Twitch Community Surpasses $8M Raised for Charity
Twitch is changing lives by connecting kids in need with gamers who care. What better community to answer the call for help for kids than one that has never lost touch with their inner child. Twitch is game-changing. Jeromy Adams
Founder & Director, Extra Life
} DECEMBER
Twitch Becomes Worlds Largest Video Site in Gaming in 2013
MCV More gamers are tuning into Twitch for their gaming videos than any other site.
Source: comScore Nov 2013 Video Metrics
06
99%
21
76 68 58
TO FOCUS THEIR TIME ON GAME ENTERTAINMENT
TOP 4 ACTIVITIES
ON TWITCH 38%
Broadcast Gameplay
25%
Only a third of them go to traditional game news and product review sites
61%
20 HOURS
ON TWITCH
PER WEEK
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The sheer number of outstanding broadcasters on Twitch is staggering. We have more than 900,000 unique broadcasters streaming per month, of which 5100 are members of the Twitch Partner Program. We can't highlight them all, but here are some of the most unique and interesting stories from 2013:
LethalFrag
Lethal embarked on a two-year broadcasting challenge to stream everyday by turning gaming into his career (and not shave his beard for the duration). He succeeded and completed his quest on January 5, 2014.
MANvsGAME
MAN has a MANly voice and is on a quest to complete every game known to MAN. He has become one of the most recognizable Twitch broadcasters and now boasts more than 27M channel views.
Sacriel
This phenomenal player of DayZ and Battlefield was the first to implement a ranking system for his channel subscribers. It's an example of the innovative things Twitch broadcasters will do for their communities.
CaptainSparklez
Sparklez is an example of a top YouTuber who has branched out to Twitch and found massive success.
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WWW.TWITCH.TV/ thejustinflynn
Justin Flynn only exploded onto the scene six months ago, but is already widely known as one of the most unique and interactive streamers. His channel has an "edutainment" vibe where viewers learn as they are entertained. He is also an aspiring Pokemon X/Y pro who is on a quest, with his community, to collect a shiny version of every single Pokemon in the Pokedex.
BeyondTheSummit
BeyondTheSummit is a pioneer for Dota 2 broadcasts in the Asia Pacific region and beyond. After exceeding their $25,000 goal to raise nearly $40k via an indiegogo campaign earlier this year, BeyondTheSummit has exploded onto the scene to cover practically every major online, and offline, Dota 2 tournament under the sun.
NL_Kripp
Kripp is a professional gamer who plays ALL THE GAMES. People come to watch simply because he is better than everyone at every game you can imagine: Path of Exile, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, you name it.
Swiftor
Swiftor is one of the first people to stream gaming content and has been around since the old days on Justin.tv. He's a mainstay who created the GameOn Network, a standout group of passionate gamers. Swiftor is approaching 15M total channel views.
TSM_Dyrus
Dyrus is a top player for Team Solomid, a leading League of Legends pro team. He is one of the most prolific broadcasters on Twitch, streaming his LoL skills for 10s of hours per week.
itsHafu
Hafu, a former high Elo League of Legends streamer, now broadcasts Hearthstone full-time. As an entertaining, interactive streamer, she's built an awesome and supportive audience that tunes in to her every move.
Towelliee
Towelliee is a multi-genre gamer with one of the most loyal communities on Twitch (Hammers up!). Whether hes tanking the newest raid bosses in World of Warcraft or hunting down other survivorZ in DayZ, his ability to interact with thousands of people simultaneously cannot be matched.
followgrubby
Manuel (better known as Grubby) is an independent StarCraft II professional player from the Netherlands. Winning over 40 gold medals in SC2's precursor, WarCraft III, he is now concentrating on becoming one of the world's supreme StarCraft II players. Come for top-level Protoss play, stay for the educational and good-natured chat interaction.
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More than 100 game developers and publishers have ocked to Twitch in order to use live video as a way to connect with consumers. Youll notice a wide variety of AAA titles and major brands, such as Microsoft Studios, who has broadcast more than 16 million minutes of video in 2013 and mastered the art of turning their Twitch channel into a scheduled affair with regular programming. There are also indie brands who have built tremendous followings on Twitch. One of the most notable brands is Mojang and its huge Minecraft community.
Mojang
Minecraft went from indie to blockbuster to global sensation and is now a regular top 10 game on Twitch. Notch, the games creator, is also a prolific broadcaster.
Playstation
PlayStation started broadcasting on Twitch just prior to the PS4 launch, including E3 and gamescom press conferences. They then achieved a lot of post-launch visibility due to the console's Twitch broadcasting functionality.
2k
2K was the rst AAA game publisher to leverage Twitch as a central community outreach platform.
ParadoxInteractive
Paradox Interactive was the very rst publisher to announce the integration of Twitch into a game. Theyve also been one of the most frequent broadcasters on Twitch since 2011.
TrionWorlds
Trion uses Twitch as a way to keep their gamers informed of new features and game news. Their gamers know to check their channel for their fix.
* THIS IS NOT A RANKED LIST +
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Nearly every top gaming site has taken to Twitch as a must-have piece of their content creation pie. Destructoid wins for most prolic media outlet on Twitch with 7 programs, more than 40,000 followers and exceeding 100,000,000 total channel views.
FourPlayerPodcast
Fourplayerpodcast began as a podcast and later a blog. 4Player started live streaming in February 2008 on Justin.tv. Fast forward to 2013 4Player is now one of the most followed grassroots media channels on Twitch with over 165,395 followers!
Machinima
You may have heard of these guys. They're one of the largest YouTube networks and have recently started using Twitch as their live platform. They broadcast more than a dozen individual shows comprising almost 40 hours of video every week. They are quickly amassing a massive following.
Rev3Games
Rev3 Games is the internet home of Adam Sessler and Anthony Carboni! Adam Sessler is an industry veteran and a long time video content creator, best known as the former co-host of X-Play on G4TV. Together, they cover all sorts of video game industry thingsinterviews, reviews, discussions, reveals, exclusives, and live hangouts with the community!
Search Trends
Some of the most surprising data we came across when pulling together this year-end recap was the search trends. Topping the list were searches for specic broadcasters and content related to Minecraft, Magic the Gathering, Speedrunning and FIFA.
Chat Trends
Chat experience on Twitch is a beloved tradition with a vernacular all its own and with a unique visual language built on special emoticons. Here are the most popular emoticons that show up in the Twitch chat ecosystem:
dota starcraft league heroes of newerth path of exile osu voyboy maplestory skkf ocelote
MCPVP
Minecraft Player vs Player (MCPVP) is the second most searched for game on Twitch after Magic. Interestingly, neither of which is in the top two most viewed games.
Scarra
Scarra is the most searched for League of Legends player on Twitch, while Dyrus is the most viewed.
Speedrun
Speedrunning is an enormous phenomenon on Twitch! Find out more about it in the next chapter.
BibleThump
FIFA
FIFA is one of the most searched for console games on Twitch.
PogChamp
riotgames
riotgames is one of the most viewed channel on Twitch but way down the list in terms of search volume.
* NEITHER OF THESE LISTS ARE RANKED +
19 18
SwiftRage
3x
540
284
minutes
TWITCH IS COMPARABLE
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videos
30
41 12
40 7 19 5 12 4 10 4
eSports has been around for longer than you might think, dating all the way back to the high score jockeys of the arcades in the late 70s, to the rebirth of competition with Street Fighter II in the early nineties, and the genesis of the term 'eSports' with Quake, Counter-Strike, and StarCraft in the early 2000s.
In this time there have been numerous peaks and valleys as pivotal institutions and community pillars rose and fell. However, the present era of eSports has elevated the industry to previously unimaginable heights, in no small part thanks to the development and adoption of modern streaming technology. The current era of eSports kicked into high gear when Street Fighter IV, StarCraft II beta, and League of Legends beta were all released in close proximity during 2009. The eSports industry began to undergo a new (perhaps the third, or fourth, depending on who you ask) renaissance due to the launch of these historical competitive titles. And the perfect storm of next-gen eSports games paired perfectly with the explosion of live streaming platforms, such as Justin.tv. No longer did eSports providers have to pay excruciating bandwidth costs and hire satellite trucks with expensive TV-grade production crews. Organizers could now cheaply broadcast and monetize their content utilizing the backbone infrastructure provided by streaming services. Suddenly, eSports became a much more stable and viable industry to venture into. And that was reflected by growth in everything from tournament viewership, sponsorship dollars & prize pools, number of professional players & teams, and the global eSports fanbase.
However, even when considering the growth period of 2009-2012, 2013 has been an absolutely immense year for the eSports community. Multi-game circuits such as DreamHack and the Intel Extreme Masters continue to be a crucial area of growth and pillars of the eSports community, but perhaps the biggest trends of 2013 have been the explicit and direct involvement by publishers and developers in supporting their respective games as competitive titles. The big three contemporary eSports titles (League of Legends, StarCraft II, and Dota 2) have settled into a holding pattern as all 3 publishers host their very own leagues, each of which awards millions of dollars in prizing. The million dollar Call of Duty Championship has had a massive impact on growing the CoD eSports community, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is now directly supported by Valve with a compendium-esque support model which lead to the biggest eSports event in Counter-Strike history this November. And Capcom launched the Capcom Cup with qualifiers spread across every major region for the Street Fighter community. Game developers and publishers have caught on to the massive growth in eSports viewership and many are beginning to see investing in and supporting eSports as a key marketing strategy for their competitive titles. More and more games have begun to include Twitch streams, specifically of their eSports tournaments and players, directly within their game client and are integrating Twitch in new, meaningful ways. Spectator modes are no longer an afterthought, but a core feature touted throughout the development process. Its not just the select few communities that have benefitednearly every eSports community seems to have grown in tandem within the last year. A rising tide lifts all ships, and this tide is washing a little further up shore every month. Here's to an even better 2014.
CarlOscarPhotography esportphoto.com
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eSports Events
Twitch is proud to be a direct sponsor and supporter of nearly every major competitive gaming communitywe couldn't have made it this far without your support! Here are some of the largest and fastest growing eSports events worldwide:
DreamHack
What started as a small Swedish hacker convention in 1994 now proudly proclaims to be the "Woodstock of Gaming." DreamHack combines a 3-day, 24-hour non-stop LAN party with eSports titles in every major genre and has an ever growing repertoire of events held annually all across Europe. This past DreamHack Winter broke all previous records for attendance and viewership with tournaments spanning 8 different eSports titles, three of which achieved over 100,000 concurrent viewersnot bad!
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Speedrunning is a Phenomenon
WWW.TWITCH.TV/
Speedrunning is the sportnaythe art of completing video games as fast as humanly possible. This is achieved by pushing the limits of digital worlds, abusing every known glitch and unintended 'feature' in both retro games and new releases alike. Because speedrunning is the culmination of tens of thousands of hours of trial, error, and renement, it makes each stream an unique experience of simultaneous joy and frustration. Given this intense dedication, many speedrunners focus their talents on only one or two specic games.
The speedrunning community continues to be a strong pillar of growth and constant viewership, and newer versions of popular games have breathed new life and intrigue into this movement. Most popular games among speedrunners continue to be classic Nintendo titles, but AdamAK has helped break that stigma. Playing both Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City, AdamAK has made a following out of his incredibly impressive gameplay, as well as the hype coming off the latest release in the series. Speedrunning also has potential as an eSport thanks to Binding of Isaac League Racing (Boilr.org) which has built a popular following on Twitch. These BOILeR matches involve two players going head-tohead in a match using a tournament-standard save file. They start at the same time and race to see who will make it to a specified location first.
CosmoWright
As the founder of SpeedRunsLive, Cosmo continues to be a strong pillar and positive influence within the speedrunning community. It was a dramatic year for Cosmo, with multiple records gained and lost, as well as a new version of his cornerstone title, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD.
AdamAK
The breakout star of the speedrunning community for 2013, AdamAK is a bit foul mouthed, but it is kind of expected when you play nothing but Grand Theft Auto. Adam slowly gained a following throughout the year, with his Summer Games Done Quick performances putting him over the top. We expect even greater success from him once the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V is released.
Siglemic
One of the original Speedrunning stars of Twitch, Siglemic still continues to delight thousands of concurrent viewers per session with his extremely technical gameplay. His popularity is even more impressive when you consider that, unlike other Speedrunners who received updated versions or sequels to their preferred games, Siglemic is still only known to play one game: Super Mario 64 on the original hardware.
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What if we told you one of the biggest trends of 2013 weren't people playing video games, but video games playing themselves? Meta-Gaming brought the thrill of non-competition and frivolous entertainment to the Twitch masses, whether it was betting on Salty Bet or watching Cookie Clicker streams, it was a very strange time for all of us.
Salty Bet
PC Gamer calls it "the pop culture royal rumble that we can't stop watching," and neither can the Twitch audience. Salty Bet features thousands of fighting game characters battling one another in CPU vs CPU ghts, which viewers get to bet upon with fake money. It's so pervasive on Twitch that we even have our own fighter: Twitch Waifu Chan.
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Minecraft Community
The worldwide phenomenon that is called Minecraft continues to extend its inuence on Twitch in a variety of ways. Since the dawn of our site, Minecraft has consistently been one of the top ten most popular titles being broadcast on a monthly basis, featuring everything from single player to community servers, Hunger Games and experimental modications.
This year has been another fantastic year for Minecraft content on Twitch. Earlier this year, the Nexus Minecraft Server Launch drew upwards of 50,000 concurrent viewers as a host of popular Minecraft YouTubers filled the new space. And in November, Twitch was a broadcast partner of MINECON 2013, the international Minecraft fan event hosted by the developers at Mojang. We anticipate continued growth for the Minecraft community in 2014 since Twitch Broadcasting has just recently became a built-in part of the Minecraft experience. In the short time it has been available, we've seen the number of Minecraft broadcasters explode, with more than 10,000 players regularly broadcasting their gameplay to Twitch every day.
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The Twitch community has raised more than $10 million for charity in the last two years. Whether it is massive coordinated marathons on the scale of Extra Life, major fundraising events like Games Done Quick and Desert Bus for Hope, year-round efforts like Gaming For Good, or a single person streaming in their spare time for Childs Play, the Twitch community is harnessing the power of livestreaming to make a difference. In addition to the broadcasting efforts of the Twitch community, Twitch opened a successful pop-up store with all its proceeds going to the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.
ExtraLife
The biggest video game charity event of the year, Extra Life empowers gamers to raise money for the Childrens Miracle Network Hospitals. This year the charity raised several million with $1.22 million generated by the 7,500 participants who entered Twitch information during signup. To ensure the charity was top of mind with the gaming community, Twitch created a channel page dedicated to Extra Life broadcasters.
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Twitch is ever-present at all major gaming conventions, including gamescom, E3, PAX, MINECON, GamesBeat, Dreamhack, and the biggest eSports events. In addition to broadcasting panels and presentations, Twitch has a regular booth or lounge presence at many of these conferences. We love to interact with our fans and partners making it well worth the effort!
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Game Releases
The Twitch community loves game release day. The new and existing broadcasters provide fresh gameplay with millions of new and veteran viewers anxious to get their eyes on the latest and greatest titles. While record setting numbers were expected for popular existing franchises like GTAV and COD, even a new IP like Beyond: Two Souls had more than 32,000 concurrent viewers on launch day. The Twitch communitys interests are as broad and expansive as gaming itself. Twitch viewers want gamesALL OF THEM.
The highly anticipated release of the latest installment of the Call of Duty franchise once again got the members of TheRace together for an epic live stream marathon on Twitch. TheRace features gaming personalities Ernest Le, iiJERiiCHOii, TmarTn, Muzzafuzza, and Goldglove whose goal was to reach max level in Call of Duty: Ghosts. Their endeavor was broadcast and livestreamed on Twitch for 24 hours a day until completion. The event lasted 8 days, generated over 6 million views and had peak concurrent viewership over 54,000.
The Monday before GTA5 launched worldwide, early copies found their ways into consumers hands and were subsequently broadcast on Twitch. Rather than clamp down on this natural community event, Rockstar Games embraced the groundswell (with a few rules, of course). As long as broadcasters played in Free Roam mode so as to not give away the story early, they were free to broadcast on Twitch. Almost 1,000 broadcasters went live and attracted more than 850,000 unique viewers. On GTA5s launch date the following day, over 2,500 people broadcast the game, propelling it to the #1 game viewed on Twitch.
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Major PC and eSports titles populated the top games on Twitch in early 2013, but console games like The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Call of Duty: Ghosts quickly made their way up the ranks after their respective launches. With the growing popularity of broadcasting to Twitch from PS4 and Microsoft's upcoming Xbox One broadcasting functionality, we expect to see even more console games cracking our charts.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
League of Legends is one of the most popular eSports titles in the world and has an enormous broadcaster base. It's no surprise to see them at the top of this list.
AVERAGE MONTHLY MINUTES vs 2012
DOTA 2
Explosive growth, large prize pools, and a burgeoning tournament scene all while still in Beta! Now that it's F2P for all, Dota 2 is poised to execute on its serious potential.
AVERAGE MONTHLY MINUTES vs 2012
WORLD OF WARCRAFT
This streaming staple continues to grow on Twitch. Populated by devoted viewers and some of the most interactive broadcasters, WoW should see even more growth with the upcoming expansion.
MINECRAFT
Minecraft continues its march to top game status on Twitch. Their recent integration with Twitch should keep them on the rise.
258%
508%
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Twitch on Devices
2013 was the year we saw the release of the next-generation of game consoles, and Twitch was there with them. Both PS4 and Xbox One announced Twitch broadcasting and viewing capabilities. Welcome to next-generation Twitch!
PLAYSTATION 4
PS4 was the first ever console to allow game broadcasting as a front and center feature. No more additional hardware. All possible with the touch of a button.
To date, more than 243,312 PS4 owners have connected with Twitch. As a result, Between December 23, 2013, and January 3, 2014, 20% of Twitchs broadcasters were from the PlayStation 4. Their streaming generated ten percent of the sites content based on average minutes broadcast.
XBOX ONE
The Twitch viewing app leverages all of Xbox Ones features including snap mode and voice commands. Users could also earn achievements just by watching others play.
OUYA
NVIDIA SHIELD
XBOX 360
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
CNET
ESQUIRE
TECHCRUNCH
Twitch built the sandbox, and now the next generation of console gamers are going to work on the castles.
The killer app for next-gen consoles is the live gameplay streaming any gamer can set up and broadcast around the world.
Your most convenient path to streaming greatness is through the fast-growing Twitch service.
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Twitch Integrations
Beyond the myriad of devices which boast the Twitch functionality, we have worked with numerous games and platforms to incorporate broadcasting to Twitch at the click of the button. This type of integration was rst announced at E3 in 2012 where we touted it as an upcoming feature in The Showdown Effect from Paradox Interactive. Since then, both small & large titles and household tech brands have embraced direct integration of Twitch. The following are some of the most notable direct Twitch integrations with many more slated for 2014:
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 / Cubeman2 / SMITE The Showdown Effect / War Thunder / Firefall Guncraft / Infinite Crisis / Duel of Champions Gun Monkeys / Age of Empires 2 / Minecraft Forced / Path of Exile / Company of Heroes 2 Drunken Robot Pornography EA Origin / Raptr / Evolve / Overwolf / AMD Uplay / Nvidia / Intel
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