It's no secret that 2020 was big for game streaming. Stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more people than ever were both tuning into streams and starting their own. A new analysis by Stream Elements has wrapped up some of the biggest trends to come out of 2020, including the top games, streamers, and platforms.
The impact of the pandemic on streaming is obvious in charts showing each platform's monthly hours watched. Twitch shows a huge jump from 10 billion in March to over 16 billion in April--the months when most countries around the world first went into lockdown. Facebook Gaming also jumped from under 200 million to almost 300 million during the same period--though curiously didn't see a huge increase when Mixer shut down in June, despite Microsoft partnering with Facebook on streaming. While Stream Elements doesn't show the month-by-month breakdown for YouTube Gaming, it says the platform saw over 100 billion hours watched over the course of 2020.
Despite ongoing controversy with Twitch's response to DMCA issues, the streaming platform continued to have record-breaking months through October and November, ending December on an all-time high.
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