May 4th, 2022, Rishad Dsouza
Over a half of Americans who play video games for at least an hour each week say they watch live gaming streams on one of the many available platforms.
For marketers to effectively reach out to their audience, it is useful to know the most commonly used streaming services among gamers. In this piece we dig deeper into YouGov Profiles to see whether the type of platform used for watching gaming streams is related to the genre of games played.
Looking at the five of the most popular genres of games in the US, Twitch is the most commonly used streaming service among each category of gamer. At least two in five gamers of all genres use Twitch.
Gamers that play Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) titles on PC or console lead the way for Twitch, with over one in two saying they use the platform to view live gaming streams (53%).
FPS gamers come in next for watching live gaming streams on Twitch (46%). With two-fifths of them using YouTube Gaming (40%), they also lead the way for viewership on that platform.
Almost a quarter of those (23%) who play Simulation titles such as The Sims or Harvest Moon use Discord to watch live gaming streams. A third of MOBA gamers watch live game streams on Discord (34%), as do almost three in ten Battle Royale gamers (28%).
MOBA (32%) and Battle Royale (28%) players are also far likelier than gamers of other genres to use Facebook Gaming to watch live streams. Among gamers of other genres, only between 15-17% use that platform.
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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles.