Gaming remains at the top of the chart when it comes to online entertainment and YouTube’s latest achievement puts it into perspective. Google’s video-sharing platform has just announced that users have watched YouTube Gaming for more than 100 billion hours this year, which is double the amount compared to last year.
The news comes from the head of YouTube Gaming, Ryan Wyatt, who announced on Twitter that the video-sharing platform is celebrating its best year with over 100 billion hours. Out of the 100 billion figure, 10 billion came from live streams, which shows how YouTube is shaping up to become a formidable rival to Twitch.
https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1336303257421901824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1336303257421901824%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2020%2F12%2F8%2F22163728%2Fyoutube-viewers-100-billion-hours-gaming-videos-2020
Wyatt also had plenty of other statistics to share. Out of all the games, Minecraft was the most-watched video game by a large margin. It had over 200 billion views from live streams as well as uploaded videos this year.
Roblox took the second spot with 75 billion views, Garena Free Fire was close behind with 72 billion, GTA V stood at 70 billion, and Fornite managed 67 billion views.
As for YouTube gaming channels, more than 80,000 creators reached 100,000 subscribers, over a thousand creators hit 5 million subscribers, and more than 350 managed to reach 10 million.
One of the reasons behind this explosive growth is the COVID-19 pandemic which has sent the demand for online entertainment through the roof this year. Facebook Gaming and Twitch have not revealed their numbers yet, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see record numbers from each of them.
