State of the Stream: Twitch viewership up in May

Twitch viewership grew in May according to StreamElements’ latest State of the Stream report. Data from Rainmaker.gg shows that Twitch brought in 1.764 billion hours watched last month. May outperformed both April and March’s monthly totals by 5.7% and 3.4% respectively.

“Covering streaming viewership trends is a complex art since there are many variables at play, from the number of days in a month to how far into it a game launches and how many hours influential creators decide to stream. Instead, you have to look for patterns,” said Gil Hirsh, CEO and cofounder of StreamElements. “With Twitch, May has always been stronger than March until last year when there was the expected post-pandemic decline, but this year May is back on top which could signal a welcome return to the platform’s regular ebb and flow.”

Twitch’s top categories and streamers

While both the top categories and streamers on Twitch stayed largely the same, there were a number of new debuts.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom managed to crack the top 10 despite missing the first 12 days of the month. Similarly, World of Warcraft’s first major patch for Dragonflight boosted the title’s viewership back into the top 10. Their respective 37 million and 52 million hours watched pushed Fortnite and Rust out of the rankings.

Like Twitch’s top categories, the platform’s top streamers largely remained the same. However, the eighth, ninth and tenth most watched streamers made their top 10 debuts. Brazilian streamer Cellbit earned the majority of his 5.9 million hours watched streaming Minecraft. OhnePixel’s CS:GO case opening streams drove the vast majority of his 5.7 million hours watched. Finally, Turkish streamer PurpleBixi exclusively streamed Just Chatting content to net his 5.5 million hours watched. Notably, his May 14 stream covering Turkey’s presidential election accounted for just under half of his monthly total.

The road ahead for Twitch

Despite the changing tide, June will be a crucial month for Twitch viewership. The platform’s relationship with its streamers has soured recently in the wake of controversial policy changes to both its branded content policy and the limited reach of its new Partner Plus program.

Just in the last week, Twitch’s most watched male and female streamers, xQc and Amouranth, announced deals with rival platform Kick. Losing both of these big names could have a noticeable effect on Twitch’s viewership. Paul Chianese, head of product for Kick, reported that the site received 1 million new user sign ups after xQc’s announcement. However, the release of Diablo IV will likely counteract the immediate effects of these departures.