Twitch is the world’s largest video live streaming platform, and millions of gamers stream tens of thousands of hours every month. Considering that these broadcasts can also be watched on sites such as GG bet, we can say that it has more viewers than any existing TV channel. Twitch streams mainly consist of competitive games, and streamers can earn quite a lot of income according to different metrics. So, have you ever wondered which are the most profitable games on Twitch?
Profitability comes from viewership hours (hours live x average viewers): the more views a stream gets, the more money it makes to the streamer. Below we share a list of the most-watched and therefore the most profitable games on Twitch as of May 2022.
League of Legends – 126,087,108 hours
League of Legends (LoL) is a MOBA game released in 2009, and we can say that it is currently the most popular option in this genre. Developed by Riot Games, the game takes its inspiration from the DOTA mode and uses different game mechanics together. This is a PvP-focused game: two teams of five battle to take over the map, and each player has a hero they control. These heroes have different abilities and gameplay from each other, which is what makes the game popular.
You can customize your chosen hero, make him stronger by giving equipment and activate new abilities by levelling up. But you cannot succeed as a “lone wolf”: you have to work together with your teammates to win matches. League of Legends is considered the world’s largest esports game, and its World Championship event is watched by over 100 million people every year. This event is broadcast live not only on Twitch but also on ESPN.
Grand Theft Auto V – 125,604,121 hours
Even though Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) was released in 2013, it is still very popular. The biggest reason for this is that Rockstar North, the studio that developed it, has never stopped supporting the multiplayer mode. GTA V has a multiplayer mode that can be described as an MMORPG in itself, and almost all of the Twitch broadcasts are about this mode. After creating their avatars, players can do whatever they want in an extremely large and detailed city: you can organize robberies or just drive around the city: the decision is yours.
GTA V is the second best-selling video game in the world and has brought the developer studio more than $6 billion to date. (It made the first one billion dollars within three days of its release.) It may be necessary to prepare a separate guide for the list of the prizes the game has received. GTA V can be played on almost every platform, and it seems that it will not lose its popularity until the sixth game of the series is released.
Valorant – 106,656,987 hours
Riot Games may have developed a legendary game like League of Legends, but the studio does not want to be associated with this game alone. Valorant, released in 2020, is proof of that: it’s a very different game than LoL but still offers competitive mechanics and team-based gameplay. Valorant seems to have taken its inspiration from Counter-Strike, as in many ways it resembles an updated version of this game with more advanced graphics. However, the hero mechanics in LoL are also present in this game: Unlike the unnamed operators of Counter-Strike, you can choose heroes (agents) with different abilities in Valorant.
Riot Games designed Valorant to be an esports game and is already holding a global tournament called the Champions Tour. The first tournament of the game was held in Berlin in December 2021, despite COVID, and attracted a lot of attention. Valorant seems to be designed to be a Counter-Strike for new generation players, and considering the number of viewers, we can say that Riot Games has been extremely successful.
Apex Legends – 63,639,290 hours
In the last 5 years, we have observed that two genres dominate the gaming industry: the first is MOBA and the other is Battle Royale (BR) games. PUBG has been the most popular name in the BR genre for a long while, but this seems to have changed in the last few years. Apex Legends, developed by Respawn, attracts more attention and is watched by much more people. This is a game set in the Titanfall universe created by the same studio. Unlike PUBG, there are characters, each with different abilities and gameplay, and each player can freely choose one.
But the overall goal is still the same: to be the last player or team standing. Apex Legends has around 100 million players and can run on any platform (PC & console). We can say that it has much faster gameplay compared to PUBG. Apex Legends also won the “Stream Game of the Year” award from The Streamer Awards in 2022.
