Gaming remains one of web entertainment's most influential pillars, and nowhere is it more evident than in the 2020 figures from YouTube. Users on the video-sharing service viewed 100 billion hours of gaming content on the website last year, according to YouTube Gaming head Ryan Wyatt, double the amount of hours watched in 2018. On Tuesday, the firm also released a blog post with a more in-depth analysis of 2020.
We just had our best year ever @YouTubeGaming, and it's thanks to YOU. The Creators, Publishers, and Gamers watching every day who have made YouTube Gaming the largest Gaming platform in the world.
— Ryan Wyatt (@Fwiz) December 8, 2020
But just how big of a year was it? Let's take a look: https://t.co/tLC4ezvUx4 pic.twitter.com/QQ9I2Vw3s6
There were few other fascinating figures for Wyatt to post. For starters, with more than 200 billion views of Minecraft live streams and posted video viewed this year, Minecraft was the most watched game on all of YouTube by a wide margin. Of note, Roblox with 75 billion views was the second most-watched game on the site, and the top five are rounded out by royal smartphone fight Garena Free Fire (72 billion), Grand Theft Auto V (70 billion), and Fortnite (67 billion).
YouTube reports it has more than 40 million active gaming channels today, and this past year, 80,000 channels have crossed 100,000 subscribers. In 2020, 5 million subscribers smashed into more than 1,000 channels, while 10 million subscribers entered more than 350 channels.
"Creators across the board have seen significant rises in subscriptions, audiences and viewership across 2020. One amazing example of growth in 2020 is Minecraft content maker Dream, who saw channel subscribers surge from 1 million in January 2020 to over 13 million by October the same year," reads YouTube's blog post. "The speedrunning series for the channel drew tens of millions of views each."
The current coronavirus pandemic, which has taken online entertainment figures through the roof for things such as streaming TV and multiplayer games, is part of the reason why gaming content is likely to grow in 2020. We don't have Facebook Gaming or Twitch figures yet, but it would not be shocking to announce record numbers by the end of the month for any of those rivals.
