In the gaming/esports industry, content is what dominates and binds the ecosystem together.
While Amazon owned Twitch was pretty much the go-to platform for streamers and enthusiasts alike, relatively fresh players like YouTube Gaming, Facebook Gaming and Microsoft’s Mixer are showing signs of life.
In their recent Q4 report on streaming, StreamElements and Arsenal.gg have pointed that Facebook Gaming’s market share spiked quite a bit in year-on-year. While Facebook had around 3.1 per cent market share in December 2018, it grew to 8.5 per cent in December 2019.
The other players also saw minimal rise in their share except Twitch. Twitch’s percentage dropped to 61 from 67.1 in December 2018.
But this does not deter Twitch’s position as the industry giant, obviously.
YouTube Gaming was steady with 27.9 percent of the market shares from 27.5 per cent in the previous year. Microsoft’s streaming service hopped 0.6 per cent from 2% in 2018.
Facebook gaming, according to StreamElements CEO Doron Nir will be come a meaningful player in this category by 2021. As the social media platform brings in more influencers and specific features targeted at the game streaming biz, the growth seems not very surprising.
For the first time, a non-gaming category topped the charts at Twitch with “Just Chatting” taking the lead. It is trailed by League of legends in Q4, making it the largest in the gaming category with around 74 million hours of watched content in December, followed by Fortnite‘s 58 million hours.