Twitch adds 15m viewers in just six months

The rise of Twitch isn’t new to anyone in the games industry. But the latest numbers are simply astronomical.

Gamers are now watching over 12 billion minutes of Twitch content every month – a figure that has doubled since 2012. That’s an average of 106 minutes every day.

But it’s the speed at which Twitch has grown throughout the past year that’s most incredible. In March 2013, the platform surpassed 30m unique viewers per month. Just six months later, that figure shot up to 45m.

At the end of the year, Twitch had surpassed all of its closes rivals to be crowned the most watched site for video games. In fact, Twitch has more viewers than Facebook, SyFy, MTV, Hulu, ESPN and Vevo.

Twitch’s retrospective is a window into the changing games industry. With over 900,000 unique broadcasters, gamer-made content such as Let’s Plays and live streams are king in a world where reviews and previews once ruled the roost.

76 per cent of the site’s users are aged between 18 and 49, while the average age on Twitch ranks in at just 21. Now, just a third of these users go to traditional games outlets for reviews and traditional games coverage.

But it’s not just the games media at risk, either. 68 per cent of Twitch users admit they have turned off their TVs and tuned into gaming streams instead.

Watching others play games has now become just as popular as playing them – and Twitch is leading the charge.