Twitch viewership in May continued to hover around its new post-pandemic normal, but its top stars demonstrated how they can move the charts.
According to StreamElements latest State of the Stream report and Rainmaker.gg’s data, viewers watched 1.678 billion hours on the games streaming platform last month. Since January, viewership has slowed incrementally. May’s daily average of 54 million hours watched is down 11% compared to the first month of 2024.
However, Twitch’s viewership is still up compared to its pre-pandemic watch time. This May’s 1.678 billion hours watched is up nearly 80% compared to May 2019’s 940 million hours watched.
Twitch’s top categories in May
Twitch’s top categories held steady in May with the top seven titles holding their ranks.
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League of Legends saw the biggest gains among these top seven titles. Riot Games’ flagship title earned 19% more hours watched compared to April thanks to the Mid-Season Invitational. The mid-year international tournament helped boost the title 19% to 112 million hours watched.
Similarly, Apex Legends reclaimed a spot in the Twitch top 10 thanks to its new competitive season and a major content update. Dubbed Upheaval, Apex Legends added a new character and re-enabled its Solo mode. Additionally, the title got a boost from the Apex Legends Global Series Split 1 Playoffs.
However, Elden Ring saw the most growth among the top 10 games. The 2022 Game of the Year rocketed up the charts thanks to Kai Cenat even before its major DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, launched. While the data is a bit messy as Cenat broadcasted part of his marathon in the wrong category, his 116 hours tagged in Elden Ring garnered 13.1 million hours watched. With just the recorded data, Cenat averaged nearly 105,000 viewers.
“Kai Cenat’s marathon playthrough of Elden Ring helped propel it into the top 10 and highlighted the significant influence and power that individual streamers can have on a game’s popularity. Aminematue’s streaming of the Kings League’s World Cup event proved this point, too. His 17 hours of content was dwarfed by the 45 hours streamed on the league’s official channel, but he averaged over 100K more viewers,” said Or Perry, cofounder of StreamElements.
Twitch’s top creators
Given Cenat’s blockbuster Elden Ring marathon, perhaps its no surprise that he earned the top spot among Twitch’s top creators in May. Overall, viewers watched 20 million hours of Cenat’s content last month.
Several streamers in the top 10 earned their spots through co-streaming content on their Twitch channels. Both ibai and Caedrel co-streamed League of Legends’ MSI, helping them reach their monthly viewership totals of 8.4 million and 7.9 million respectively. Likewise, ibai and Aminematue’s streams of Kings League helped them earn their spots. Additionally, nearly all of Tarik’s viewership came from his broadcasts of the Valorant Campions Tour and Jynxzi saw major gains from Rainbow Six Siege esports.
StreamElements full State of the Stream Report from May is available now.
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