Grand Theft Auto V has officially taken over as the newest game to dominate Twitch’s collaboration meta. The nature of the modern Twitch era creates a cascading effect steadily pulling more creators to a single title, thereby pushing it up the charts.
Twitch’s Top Channel – xQc
As ever, if there’s something big happening on Twitch, at its center you’ll find Félix “xQc” Lengyel. A mix of entertainment and controversy consistently keeps Lengyel at the top of Twitch. This week Lengyel focused almost entirely on GTA V, breaking 6M hours watched in the process.
Also of note is the steady rise of Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek. Both Grzesiek and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins returned to Twitch at roughly the same time after the termination of Mixer, but Blevins has not returned to the upper echelon of the platform, while Grzesiek is on the Top 10 for multiple consecutive weeks, this time breaking 2M hours watched.
Twitch’s Top Content – Just Chatting
As ever, it is extremely difficult for any title to dethrone Just Chatting as the dominant category on Twitch. However, GTA V gave a genuine fight this week, reaching 43M hours watched. In previous years, that would have been a staggering first place finish, but it is a testament to just how much Just Chatting has grown as a category that it was still roughly 15M hours watched higher than its best contender.
Still, the rise of GTA V will remain worthy of discussion until its inevitable dropoff in part because this is not the first time. While the Fall Guys and Among Us of the world have their moment and are unlikely to return without a massive content update or sequel, the unique appeal of watching top streamers role play as citizens of a Grand Theft Auto world has a natural ebb and flow to it that has sustained the title for years. While the game will fall out of the top three at some point when big names like Lengyel move on, history shows that GTA V won’t drop out of the Top 10 like most trends, and will have another turn in the spotlight down the road.
