Home Audience Insight Parity Among Top Games Gives “Just Chatting” an Edge in Hours Watched: Top Twitch Content, August 2019

Parity Among Top Games Gives “Just Chatting” an Edge in Hours Watched: Top Twitch Content, August 2019

by Max Miceli

Mentioned in this article

With numerous top titles seeing a fluctuation in airtime from top influencers, “Just Chatting” stood out as a reliable, consistent form of content.

Meanwhile, the release of World of Warcraft Classic at the end of the month and Dota 2’s The International taking place led to six categories eclipsing 59M hours watched.

The following titles are ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch, from Aug. 1-31, with data compiled using TEO Access.

 

 

Year-Over-Year

 

While no title managed to produce more than 100M hours watched in August of this year, the month had stronger performances across the board from top games on Twitch compared to 2018. The lowest title in the top 10 for August this year, Teamfight Tactics, had more hours watched than three of the top 10 games from last year.

 

 

Additionally, there were a number of categories that managed to eclipse the 50M hours watched mark this year. Five games and the “Just Chatting” category all produced more than 59M hours watched in the month of August, up from just four categories to eclipse 50M in 2018. 

Fortnite has continued to be the outlier in terms of year-over-year change for titles on Twitch. Following the boom of Epic Games’ battle royale title in the spring of 2018, the game had dominant viewership on Twitch, but this year, those numbers have been significantly lower. 

That isn’t to say that Fortnite is suffering by any means. The game has stayed in the top two or three every month, and is the second most-watched game all year on Twitch behind just League of Legends, which boasts gaming’s most established esports scene.

Top Content: Just Chatting

 

This August provided a hodgepodge of games that received notable viewership on Twitch. The dichotomy in viewership between Riot Games’ strategy-based game mode Teamfight Tactics and its multiplayer online battle arena League of Legends had broadcasters playing different games at different times.

Meanwhile, the release of World of Warcraft Classic pulled influencers from various titles, like Fortnite, at the end of the month. The nature of numerous titles getting significant airtime from personality broadcasters allowed “Just Chatting” to stand at the top this month. 

 

 

Because influencers weren’t necessarily playing the same title all month, no one singular game performed particularly better than all the others. For that reason, the Just Chatting category, which consistently produces viewership regardless of what games people are playing, was able to stand out. 

Throughout the course of the year, Just Chatting has served as a mainstay in the top 10 with 540.7M hours watched overall, and since its inception in the fall of last year, it has slowly grown. The category’s appeal comes from its vague nature. As streamers begin streams or change the games that they play, Just Chatting serves as a way for broadcasters to interact with their audience without having to be tied to a particular title.

What’s Trending: Tactical Retreat

 

Riot Games’ Teamfight Tactics game mode in League of Legends generated a strong audience in July, and in the process took a chunk of viewers from standard LoL viewership. But much in the way that Apex Legends saw a decline after its first full month on Twitch despite being massively successful for an extended period, TFT has started to see a significant falloff. 

 

 

While TFT saw enough hours watched to make it into this month’s top 10, its downward week-over-week trajectory suggests that it could be on its way out. This past week, the game mode missed the weekly top 10 for the first time since it was released, and it has largely seen declines in viewership all month. 

What seems to be a loss for TFT has been a boon for LoL though. When the beta test for Riot’s strategy-based game came out in late June, LoL viewership suffered as many broadcasters took time off from the MOBA to play TFT instead. However, much in the way that Fortnite took its viewership back from Apex Legends after the game’s newness wore off, LoL has seen a boost to its hours watched totals this month.



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