Riot Games, Valve, and Blizzard make up 77% of Twitch streams
Popular esports titles continue to dominate the livestreaming site Twitch.tv, with a vast majority of users continuing to watch only a handful of games.
The real winners in the battle for Twitch domination appear to be Riot Games, Valve Corp and Blizzard Entertainment. According to a report by livestream data site Gamoloco, they collectively made up over 77 percent of all hours watched from the top 20 games in March 2015.
The titles responsible for these studios’ success all have a very strong esports community and professional gaming scene. Riot Games leads the pack with League of Legends, which by itself accounts for nearly a third of all hours watched. The other games in the top four on Twitch are Valve’s Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, and Blizzard’s Hearthstone. Blizzard also has three other games in the top 20, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II and Diablo III.
Old games still out-stream new ones
It is interesting to note that out of the top 20 games, only about a quarter are titles that are even relatively new. The rest of the most popularly streamed games were released one or more years ago.
“While some games, such as the entire top 5, are regulars at the top spots, it is too early to say where new releases such as Bloodborne and Cities: Skylines will stand in 6 months from now,” wrote Gamoloco creator Nicolas Cerrato. “The fact that they showed up that high in March is proof that they’re great games for streaming, but do they have what it takes to become even more than that? Only time will tell.”
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the top four titles for March were all free-to-play games, and free-to-play titles accounted for over half of the total hours watched. Triple-A titles, by comparison, accounted for only 14.9 percent.
While triple-A titles are often financially successful on their own, a few studies have shown that esports and the livestreaming community they create drive engagement with games, keeping people playing longer and more often, and also making them more likely to spend money on merchandise, sponsored peripherals, and in-game transactions.
