Streaming in The Pandemic
When the pandemic hit, we turned to technology to keep us busy as the world sheltered in place. Spending countless hours on social media, streaming TV & movies, and playing video-games — we turned towards tech to get us through this difficult time in our lives.
Live-streaming video games were a huge hit during the pandemic, with notable figures like the U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streaming mobile games on Twitch. People sat down with their favorite streamers from Twitch and Facebook Gaming to watch them play games and chat with thousands of other viewers from around the world.
On Monday, the February issue of the “State of the Stream” report was released by StreamElements and analytics firm Rainmaker.gg. The report is more proof that live-streaming sites were one of the pandemic’s biggest winners, assuming there are winners in a global pandemic.
The report’s most interesting finding is that the hours watched on both Twitch and Facebook Gaming are up about 80% year over year. Twitch has increased by 82% or more than 1.8 billion hours of watch time, while Facebook Gaming has grown 79% or 400 million hours of watch time. These numbers are huge — how did live-streaming become so massive?
Live streaming is a multi-billion-dollar industry that allows streamers to interact with their audiences. Watching and chatting with your favorite streamer is exciting, simple, and free, so it is no surprise that its popularity continues to grow.
Did you use Twitch or Facebook Gaming during the pandemic? Who is your favorite live streamer?
I am not a financial advisor and my comments should never be taken as financial advice. Investments come with risk, so always do your research and analysis beforehand.