The number of hours streamed decreased as well.
Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet have released a new report covering statistics on gaming streaming platforms for the second quarter of 2022. According to the report, major streaming platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming saw a decline in growth compared to the previous quarter.
From Q1 2022, hours watched across all platforms decreased by 8.4% – from 8.06 billion to 7.36 billion, while the number of hours of streaming decreased by 12% – from 250 million to 220 million. Compared to the same period in 2021, hours watched dropped by 18.1% and hours streamed decreased by 19.4%.
Twitch holds the first position in terms of hours watched representing 76.7% of the market share, and in terms of streaming hours this share is even larger – 92.7%. However, hours watched on the platform in the second quarter of 2022 decreased by 8% compared to the previous quarter, and by 13.4% compared to the same period last year.
The number of hours streamed also dropped – by 10.8% from the previous quarter, and by 16% from Q2 2021. Average concurrent viewership on Twitch declined as well. It fell by 7.9% compared to Q1 2022 and by 14.3% from Q2 2021.
Twitch's Just Chatting category, however, once again saw growth in the quarter. It has been the most watched category on Twitch since Q3 2020 and despite the overall drop in hours watched on the platform, the category grew by 2.4% from Q1 2022 reaching its highest ever hours watched (828 million).
Along with Just Chatting, the top categories watched across all platforms in Q2 2022 were GTA V (465 million hours watched) and League of Legends (465 million hours). The top publisher watched in the quarter became Riot Games (895 million hours watched) followed by Rockstar Games (490 million hours), and Take-Two (468 million hours).
A decline in the number of hours watched and the streamings themselves is expected for the period as it reflects the normalization after the pandemic, during which streaming services set a number of records. The timing for such a downturn is, however, not the best, as it came at the beginning of the recession that streamers are already starting to feel due to the cancellation of advertising deals.
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