Credit: Riot Games/lolesports
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League of Legends led Twitch for a third straight month, while Fortnite continued its year-over-year decline and Grand Theft Auto V saw sizable yearly growth.
The following titles are ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch 
, from May 1-31, with data compiled using TEO Access.
Year-Over-Year
The same way that April of 2019 differed from 2018, a decline in Fortnite’s
hours watched was the most significant difference between Twitch viewership for May of 2019 from 2018. However, Fortnite coming down to earth isn’t the only thing that’s changed.
Both League of Legends and Grand Theft Auto V role play have seen notable increases on Twitch. LoL has increased its viewership by around 12M hours watched, with the help of viewership growth from the Mid-Season Invitational, and GTA V has managed to grow by more than 50M hours watched after a viewership surge in March.
Top Content: Break While You’re Ahead
League of Legends has managed to top all other Twitch content for the third straight month giving it just more than a 40M hours watched lead over Fortnite as the top content for the year so far.
Even though the Spring Split for LoL’s top leagues like the LoL Championship Series and LoL European Championship concluded in April, the Mid-Season Invitational that ran from the beginning of the month through May 21 provided a consistent source of weekly viewership for LoL.
Meanwhile, a year-over-year boost for LoL viewership on Twitch was assisted by MSI as Riot Games’ channel produced 9M hours watched during the event, up from 8.1M in 2018. The LoL Championship Korea’s Korean-language channel also racked up 2.5M hours watched, up from 1.7M last year.
What’s Trending: Ups and Downs
Numerous top titles saw year-over-year changes in total hours watched in May, but the month-over-month shifts in viewership for Twitch’s top games could be even more telling. While LoL and Fortnite saw slight increases in overall hours watched from April, other influencer-based forms of viewership like Just Chatting and Grand Theft Auto V saw declines in viewership.
Additionally, beta testing for World of Warcraft Classic has given WoW a noticeable boost in viewership that could make it a formidable form of influencer-based content on Twitch in the coming months.
GTAV’s drop in viewership can be attributed to top influencers like Jaryd “Summit1g” Lazar streaming significantly less of the game. After streaming GTAV for 222 hours in April, Lazar only played the game for 122 hours in May. Despite the decline in airtime, Lazar was still the second most-watched streamer of GTAV in May behind “Vader.”
