Live Game Streaming Trends

LIVE GAME STREAMING TRENDS

Q1 2021 DAILY STREAMING HOURS WATCHED INCREASE 80% YOY ■ Live streaming audiences continue Q1 2019, 2020, 2021 | TWITCH, YOUTUBE GAMING, MIXER, AND FACEBOOK GAMING to skyrocket. In 2021, audiences watched an average of 97 million ( 2 ) hours of live streams a day; an 80% 125M 2019 2020 2021 ( 1 ) increase since 2020 and a 139% increase since 2019.

100M ■ ( 1 ) 2021’s ﬁrst major viewership spike was driven by massively popular video game Rust and its role-playing servers. The servers 75M featured some of the most popular streamers in gaming including: xQcOW, Myth, shroud, Pokimane, 50M Valkyrae, and ludwig.

■ ( 2 ) On January 24th, Q1 hit a peak of 120 million hours watched, 25M driven largely by the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship ﬁnals.

JAN FEB MAR

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 2 HOURS WATCHED TOP WESTERN STREAMING PLATFORMS ■ The western game streaming Q1 2019, 2020, 2021 | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING platforms reached 8.8 billion hours watched this quarter, a year-over-year increase of 80% 8.8B compared Q1 2020. ■ The greatest increase came from 6.3B Twitch which generated 6.3 billion hours watched in Q1 2021; a 97% increase from the prior year. 4.9B ■ Live hours watched on YouTube 3.6B Gaming increased from 1.1 billion to 3.2B 1.4 billion, making it the 2nd most 2.8B watched live streaming platform.

■ Facebook Gaming audiences 1.4B surged year-over-year with an 1.1B 0.6B 1.1B increase of 87% compared to 2020. 0.7B 0.1B Q1 ‘19 Q1 ‘20 Q1 ‘21

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 3 TOP 10 MOST WATCHED GAMES IN STREAMING ■ Personality driven roleplay games stole Q1 2021 HOURS WATCHED | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING the spotlight from major esports. GTA V overtook League of Legends as the

GAME RANK HOURS WATCHED most watched game in streaming. Grand Theft +6 Auto V 536.4M ○ NoPixel, a custom Grand Theft Auto V server, enabled streamers League of -1 Legends 534.0M to become ﬁctional characters in a faux reality television style Fortnite - 389.0M environment.

Garena Free +1 321.7M Fire ○ Popular creators ﬂocked to Rust, a multiplayer survival game, Minecraft - 319.3M creating private streamers servers. The hype made it the 8th most PUBG Mobile - 317.7M watched game in Q1 2021. Call of Duty: +9 Warzone 289.9M ■ The Battle Royale genre has sustained its popularity, taking 4 of the top 10 Rust +27 270.2M spots in the ranking.

VALORANT +5 235.9M

CS:GO -2 223.0M

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 4 TOP 10 GAMING INFLUENCERS ■ Variety streamer, xQcOW, tops the Q1 2021 HOURS WATCHED | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING charts as the most watched inﬂuencer of Q1 2021. His GTA V RP streams fueled his popularity during the quarter, STREAMER RANK PLATFORM HOURS WATCHED generating 30 million hours watched xQcOW - 73.2M on his channel.

Gaules - 38.5M ■ Ludwig has emerged as one of fastest growing creators on Twitch, largely summit1g +10 28.5M driven by his unique approach to streaming content. Not only was he Trymacs +12 27.2M the host of the popular Twitch game show, “Hive Mind”, but his “Subathon”, Auronplay +5 26.2M a non-stop nearly month-long live stream, reached a peak of 107k ludwig +38 24.0M viewers.

HasanAbi -3 23.0M ■ Live streaming continues to expand to global audiences with 4 out of 10 NICKMERCS +2 22.9M creators living outside the United States. shroud - 22.2M

ibai -7 21.6M

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 5 TOP 5 FEMALE GAMING INFLUENCERS ■ Valkyrae ﬁnished as the #1 female Q1 2021 HOURS WATCHED | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING streamer in Q1 2021 almost doubling the next closest streamer STREAMER RANK PLATFORM HOURS WATCHED in total hours watched.

■ Valkyrae - 12.2M Valkyrae has continued to bridge the gap between gaming culture and more general popular culture. Rae recently appeared in a Pokimane - 6.8M “Machine Gun Kelly” music video as “Corpse”. The video has hit over 12.3M YouTube views. Pekora Ch. 兎田ぺこら +2 6.8M ■ The male/female streamer gap is still substantial. Valkyrae placed 27th overall in total hours watched 서새봄냥 across both male and female saddummy +2 5.1M streamers and Pokimane placed 98th.

itsHafu -1 4.9M

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 6 TOP 10 VTUBER GAMING INFLUENCERS ■ VTubers like Pekora, Gawr Gura, and Q1 2021 HOURS WATCHED | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING CodeMiko emerged in Q1 as a popular subgenre of streaming culture. STREAMER PLATFORM HOURS WATCHED QoQ INCREASE Pekora Ch. ■ A VTuber or “Virtual YouTuber” is a 6.8M +11% 兎田ぺこら streamer who broadcasts as an animated avatar. Often these avatars 渋谷ハル 5.7M +39% have anamorphic traits allowing the Kanae streamer to incorporate physical 4.7M +14% Channel changes to their avatars as part of the content. Ash_on_LoL 3.9M +274%

Miko Ch. さくら ■ Most VTubers broadcast in Japanese or -9% みこ 3.8M Korean, and as a result there are strong Korone Ch. similarities between VTubing and M -9% 戌神ころね 2.7 Anime. Gawr Gura Ch. hololive-EN 2.3M -53% ■ While YouTube has long been the primary platform for VTube content, CodeMiko 2.2M +176% two Twitch Streamers, Ash_On_LoL

Aqua Ch. 湊あ (274%) and CodeMiko (176%) -43% くあ 2.2M experienced the strongest growth in

不破湊 / Fuwa Minato Q1 2021. 【にじさんじ】 2.2M +43%

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 7 TOP 5 ESPORTS EVENTS BY HOURS WATCHED ■ League of Legends leads as the Q1 2021 | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, FACEBOOK GAMING, AND AFREECA most watched esport this quarter. Their European and Korean based HOURS WATCHED leagues have taken the top two LEC 2021 34.0M spots with over 60 million hours Spring watched between them. Season 0.6M ■ The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang LCK 2021 33.9M World Championship reached a Spring Season 0.5M mind-boggling peak of 2.47 million concurrent viewers; that’s almost 4x greater than the peak viewers MLBB World 32.3M Championship reached by other top events. 2020 2.5M ■ The MOBA, Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, genre has emerged 2021 ESL Pro 22.5M as the top esport format (ahead of League 13 0.4M Tactical FPS and Battle Royale) in Q1 2021.

PUBG Global 19.0M Invitational.S 2021 0.2M

PEAK VIEWERS REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 8 WALL STREET BETS STOCK CRAZE IN TWITCH CHAT Q1 2021 ■ GameStop (GME), AMC, Nokia Q1 2021 | ON TWITCH (NOK) and other ‘meme’ stocks dominated ﬁnancial headlines in GME AMC DOGE NOK Q1 after a group of social media investors, stemming from the

310K Reddit community ‘Wall Street Bets’, began buying stocks to counter short positions held by 268K 259K 256K 252K major investment ﬁrms.

■ While $GME and $AMC captured the initial spotlight, DOGE, a 189K cryptocurrency, was able to sustain the January hype into February. 146K 142K

123K 126K ■ Although the original surge in stock mentions tapered off in 99K March, there is still signiﬁcant engagement around ﬁnancial news on gaming platforms. 40K

JAN FEB MAR

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 9 SPONSORED LIVE STREAM WATCH TIME INCREASES BY 137% IN Q1 ■ Audiences ﬂocking to streaming LIVE STREAMS CONTAINING KEYWORDS “SPONSORED” AND “#AD” Q1 2020 - Q1 2021 platforms presented a ripe ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING opportunity for brands to sponsor

60K streaming content to reach gaming audiences. # SPONSORED LIVE STREAMS 46.0M ■ Streamers are required to use “Sponsored” or “Ad” in stream LIVE HOURS WATCHED titles to denote sponsored content 37.1M within their live broadcasts. 40K ○ Ex: “CHIPOTLE 30.2M CHALLENGER SERIES FEATURING FORTNITE. #sponsored”. 20.9M 20K ■ Both the total number of 14.9M sponsored streams (+88%) and the 11.8M sponsored hours watched (+137%) have grown at a dramatic rate since Q1 2020.

JAN ‘20 FEB ‘20 MAR ‘20 JAN ‘21 FEB ‘21 MAR ‘21 REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 10 TOP NON-ENDEMIC SPONSORED STREAMS ■ Major non-endemic brands Q1 2021 HOURS WATCHED | ON TWITCH, YOUTUBE LIVE GAMING, AND FACEBOOK GAMING including Spotify, Cash App and Audible have topped the charts as some of the most watched 465K sponsored streams in Q1 2021.

■ Compare.com, an auto insurance quote database, reached just under ½ million live hours watched on asmongold’s channel. Almost 3x greater than the 2nd most watched non-endemic sponsored live stream.

166K ■ SIMPLEMobile’s ludwig 125K 122K 115K sponsorship engaged his channel at the perfect moment, sponsoring the ﬁrst day of his epic nearly month long ‘subathon’

asmongold ludwig ibai Hiko Ash_On_LoL

REPORT BY // STREAM HATCHET 11 EMPOWERING MARKETING IN ESPORTS AND GAMING WITH REAL TIME DATA AND INSIGHTS INDUSTRY LEADING DATA ANALYTICS PLATFORM & REPORTING AGENCY FOCUSING ON INFLUENCER MARKETING AND SPONSORSHIP MEASUREMENT

DATA ANALYTICS FOR LIVE GAMING ACTIVATIONS Browse millions of streaming channels globally, to discover gaming creators, report on campaigns and benchmark against competitors.

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UNPARALLELED ACCESS TO GRANULAR DATA IN REAL TIME Measure the ebbs and ﬂow of an audience at a minute level granularity. Optimize content by understanding the full context of a livestream.

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