Félix “xQc” Lengyel remains at the top of Twitch, once again setting a new standard as the platform’s most popular streamer. It was also a big weekend for esports action with the start of the League of Legends Mid-Season Invitational.
Twitch’s Top Channel – xQc
Continuing to ride the momentum of his recent unbanning, Lengyel has ridden a week of Grand Theft Auto V content to nearly 11M hours watched. A single streamer alone generated just under 3M fewer hours watched than the 10th most-watched game on the entire platform (Minecraft). Lengyel is a significant force on Twitch, and an extreme outlier with the next-biggest personality-driven stream clocking in at just 3.54M hours watched.
This week also saw the return of the main Riot Games channel to the top of the pile as the company kicked off its Mid-Season Invitational, one of only two international events on the League of Legends esports calendar. Last year MSI was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
International events are where Riot’s esports viewership has a chance to challenge for the top of the rankings, where it used to be a consistent staple. Since dividing its major leagues into separate channels, the weekly viewership of a given league will occasionally slot into a Top 10 spot, but it is no longer the norm as it was when every league was broadcast on a single channel. With all the leagues competing together on one channel, Riot has quickly re-asserted itself as a leader in esports on Twitch.
Twitch’s Top Content – Grand Theft Auto V
For the first time in the platform’s history, there are two categories that consistently generate more than 60M hours watched. Not only that, but this week GTA supplanted Just Chatting as the overall leading category on Twitch.
The full Top 10 saw increased viewership this week with League of Legends even surpassing 40M hours watched, but nothing has had the consistent dominance of Just Chatting, nor has a single game been able to repeatedly challenge that dominance since the category took its place at the top. GTA’s rise remains the biggest story on Twitch with no signs of slowing momentum.
Also of note is the continued resurgence of Apex Legends. The game jumped past Valorant this week, buoyed by a significant increase in esports viewership.
