YouTube game streaming viewership jumps in September
StreamElements and Streams Charts report puts YouTube live gaming hours watched up 42% as Facebook Gaming declines 18% month-over-month
YouTube saw a spike in gaming viewership for last month, as StreamElements today released its monthly State of the Stream report, with live streaming game content hours watched on the site jumping 42% to 434 million for the month.
Other streaming services didn't far as well, with Twitch hours watched dipping from 1.87 billion to 1.8 billion, while Facebook Gaming sank 18% month-over-month to finish September with 328 million hours watched.
Facebook has been shedding viewers all year, having peaked in January with over 600 million hours watched and declining almost every month since then.
StreamElements began including YouTube in its report in June, when it posted 290 million hours of live gaming content watched, and that number has grown each month since.
It should be noted that while those figures are all pulled from the State of the Stream reports, StreamElements switched its analytics partner for the September report from Rainmaker.gg to Streams Charts.
The September report also gave some insight into YouTube's non-gaming efforts, with total live content hours watched on the site reaching 2.7 billion.
On the other end of the spectrum, it included a number of international platforms' performance.
NimoTV's streamers attracted 186 million hours watched in September, while Afreeca's streamers drew 109 million hours of gaming viewership.
The next tier of services down included Bigo (46 million hours watched), Trovo (18 million hours watched), and Nonolive (9.9 million hours watched).
[Update]: After publication, a Stream Elements representative informed us that the switch in analytics partner did skew month-over-month comparisons, as Streams Charts actually had YouTube Gaming hours watched going down in September from its August total.
"Analytic sites track hours watched at different times during any given minute so peaks and valleys can make results vary," the representative said. "Even with these variances, most results are consistent when it comes to whether or not a platform rose or dropped in overall hours watched."
Stream Elements is expected to resume working with its previous analytics partner for future reports.