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YouTube Gaming is celebrating its biggest year yet according to its global head of gaming and VR, content and partnerships, Ryan Wyatt.
Talking to VenutreBeat (thanks, GI.biz), Wyatt reflected on YouTube’s biggest milestones, as well what he thought the trends.
"We just had our biggest year yet," Wyatt said. "We have 200 million logged-in users watching gaming content every day. We’ve been excited with some of the products we’re rolling up. We crossed a big milestone where we hit 50 billion hours of gaming watch time in the last 12 months. We’ve been happy with everything. We’re working on more new products now that we’re excited to roll out.
"We’re excited about the platform and the growth and the experience in the gaming community. Creators continue to flourish. All these new games have sprung up over the past year, especially Fortnite. […] Everyone here is proud of what we’ve been doing with gaming at YouTube."
Wyatt singled out the Fallout 76 official teaser trailer, the Pokemon Go and Let’s Go Pikachu, Let’s Go Eevee trailer, Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 multiplayer trailer, and Ninja’s Fortnite videos as just some examples from this year’s YouTube Rewind, the company’s annual collection of top trending videos.
"From my perspective, a big part of it is that all the videos showed such wide diversity," Wyatt added. "It’s great gameplay. It’s trailers. It’s a bit of both the creator and the publisher community. […] It was a good mix. It speaks to the diversity of content on the platform."
As for the next big thing? It seems mobile gaming is the one to watch.
"There’s a lot of interesting things happening in the industry right now. We’re starting to see mobile games being watched and consumed much more often. That’s been an interesting trend," Wyatt said. "Just seeing again, the way Fortnite flourished–for a long time the biggest games on YouTube have been Minecraft and GTA and League of Legends. To see Fortnite to come out of nowhere as this blockbuster hit is really exciting. The rise and continued growth of VOD has been exciting alongside the progress we’ve made with live streaming. If I was to pick what’s caught my eye the most, though, it’s how big and how explosive mobile gaming has become on the platform."
