475.5 million hours of esports consumed on Twitch from July-Dec 2015
— -- Newzoo recently released updated numbers about esports viewership on Twitch, with esports totaling 21.3% of Twitch's viewership from July to December of 2015. The three most watched games weren't a surprise as the two monster MOBAs League of Legends and Dota 2 joined the wildly popular first-person shooter, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The interesting dynamic between those three games was the percentage of the hours watched when it came to esports content. Dota 2 and CS:GO, which have worldwide circuits where teams compete in different tournaments almost every weekend, are a large chunk of each game's viewership totals. 51.9% of all hours on Twitch for Dota 2 were esports-related, and CS:GO was not too far behind at 40.4%.
League has a more predictable schedule when it comes to its professional scene with various domestic leagues across the globe, and that results in less tournaments under different organizations like ESL, MLG, etc. and more popular streamers during the weekdays unrelated to esports.
The top 3
? League of Legends (142.8 Million Esports Hours, 308.5 Million Consumer Hours) ? Dota 2 (125.4 Million, 116.2 Million) ? Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (125.1 Million, 184.3 Million)
The outlier on the list of most viewed games on Twitch is actually Hearthstone. Unlike the rest of the other top games in the space, esports isn't the centerpiece of its Twitch following. A lot more people will watch streams of their favorite personalities instead of tuning into a tournament. It's similar to League having fans who only watch their favorite streamers, but to a much higher extreme.
StarCraft II rounded out the top five for 2015, with the newest expansion of the game, Legacy of the Void, helping the six-year-old game have a small bump at the end of the year. The former king of Twitch, however, is dwarfed by the top four in viewership, and it could get overtaken this year by newer Blizzard titles Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch.
Rounding out the top 5
? Hearthstone (29.7 Million Esports Hours, 203.6 Million Consumer Hours) ? StarCraft II (17.5 Million, 19.4 Million)
All together, 475.5 million hours of esports content was consumed across all game titles on Twitch, with an average of over 79 million hours a month.
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