The leading platforms for viewing gaming video content are YouTube and Twitch. YouTube Gaming channel, which has taken the video game market by storm since its launch in August 2015, was considered the primary source for gaming content for a long time. Today, with a 44 percent viewer reach, YouTube maintains its position among the biggest global outlets for gaming videos. At the same time, Amazon-owned live streaming platform, Twitch, with contents aimed at the most dedicated high spending gamers, accounted for the largest share of market revenue. The platform was founded in 2011 as a spin-off of the streaming platform Justin.tv, and focuses on video game playthroughs, broadcasts of eSports competitions and, more recently, creative content, where users are able to interact during live chats broadcasted in real time. Recent figures, however, show that in comparison to YouTube Gaming Live, Twitch has a larger number of streamers, as well as a higher number of viewers. In terms of user age distribution, both platforms fare similarly. In fact, 16-24-year olds accounted for 37 percent of both YouTube’s and Twitch’s audiences as of late 2016.
Alongside branded content, popular online gaming personalities help drive much of the traffic for gaming videos. As of March 2018, video game commentator Luis Fernando Flores, who goes by the pseudonym Fernanfloo, had the most popular YouTube gaming channel with over 26 million subscribers. Around the same time, the the second most popular channel on Twitch was riotgames, devoted to League of Legends, with 2.73 million followers.
