What just happened? The pandemic hasn't merely resulted in more than people buying games; we're also spending more than time watching others play them. According to a new written report, Twitch and Facebook Gaming more doubled their number of viewing hours last calendar month compared to the aforementioned period in 2022.

A written report on the land of the livestreaming industry from StreamElements and Rainmaker.gg shows that Twitch and Facebook Gaming viewing hours increased 117 percent YoY in Jan 2022.

Both platforms saw a massive spring in viewership last March, around the same time most of the world went into lockdown. Afterwards breaking their hours-watched records in December, new all-time highs were reached during January.

Twitch exceeded over ii billion hours watched terminal month, while Facebook Gaming passed 439 million hours, up xiii pct Month-over-Calendar month.

Twitch's non-gaming Just Chatting category was its most popular in January, racking up 242 one thousand thousand hours in views. This was followed by Rust (189 million), League of Legends (163 million), and Escape from Tarkov (108 meg). Every category saw a monthly increase, though none came shut to Rust'due south 1,226 percent jump.

xQcOW was the month's most popular streamer past far, boasting 25 million hours of views. He was followed past auronplay and TheGrefg. "While non-English speaking streamers take been a role of the superlative 10 for some fourth dimension, they at present make up a majority of those who boss the chart," writes StreamElements.

Information technology's not just game streaming that'south keeping more people on Twitch; the Music category saw over 24 million hours of views in January 2022, compared to 4.6 1000000 in January 2022. The shuttering of many live venues likely contributed to the rise, and growth is expected to continue this twelvemonth.