Live streaming news for Twitch, YouTube Gaming, Kick and others

Livestreaming across the Middle East and North Africa continued to accelerate in 2025, with Arabic-language creators commanding some of the most engaged audiences in the global industry. Kick expanded its dominant position in the region, following major expansions in 2024, and all the top creators were represented here. Creators from the Middle East and North Africa boast some of Kick’s highest Average Viewers; leading streamers from the region are often maintaining over tens of thousands of concurrent viewers. Compared to 2024, watch time for channels from this region grew by over 50%, highlighting MENA as one of the strongest performing audiences in the contemporary livestreaming landscape. #10 Vodkafunky Soufiane “Vodkafunky” Gharbaoui is a Moroccan livestreamer who built his audience through a mix of gaming and casino-focused streams. His content frequently features role playing games where he can put his personality on display, including Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead RP. After beginning to stream regularly on Kick in 2024, Vodkafunky has quickly built a sizeable audience for himself on the platform. Not boxed into one specific category, he often streams various games, always offering something new for long-time fans, and potentially reaching new viewers. #9 3mr Egyptian creator Amr “3mr” Diab gained prominence through PUBG Mobile on Kick, which he streamed for over 1,100 hours this year. However, his growth accelerated in the latter parts of the year, particularly when he dived more into Grand Theft Auto V and Just Chatting content. While his PUBG Mobile content is still popular, and apple to generate consistent viewership for the streamer, he has seen more attention from viewers when testing out other categories. The mobile gaming shooter accounted for just under half of his total watch time in 2025, with 3mr enjoying almost double the average viewership for his GTA and IRL streams. #8 Bougassaa Yassin Bougassaa is a Moroccan streamer known for energetic Just Chatting broadcasts, casino content, and GTA V streams. Similar to other growing creators on Kick, he doesn’t let himself get tied down to a single category. While the aforementioned categories are where Bougassaa spends plenty of time, he broadcasted in over 90 categories throughout 2025.  While his viewership for Just Chatting and GTA streams was undoubtedly strong, experimenting with other categories proved fruitful for the creator. For example, in almost nine hours broadcasting under the Cooking category, he maintained over 15,000 Average Viewers: a successful experiment and special stream for his fans. Collaborations with other Moroccan streamers also further strengthened his visibility throughout 2025. #7 Raydin Muhammed “Raydin” Alaa Huseyinis a UAE-based streamer whose content centers on PUBG Mobile, a title that continues to dominate viewership in the region. While his follower count may run lower than other top streamers on this ranking, he boasted a strong viewership across a year of dedication to streaming. While PUBG Mobile remains his go-to game and generated the vast majority of his content for the year, he still did try out other titles, streaming in over 120 different categories for the year. Some of the most popular one-off streams included Human: Fall Flat, Golf With Your Friends, and It Takes Two. Raydin was one of the fastest-growing streamers on this ranking. For the future of MENA in livestreaming, this creator could well climb the rankings and become a top streamer. #6 Atro Atro is a veteran content creator best known for PUBG Mobile, with a history rooted in YouTube before livestreaming became central to his brand. Currently, he boasts over 16M subscribers on YouTube, and he was one of the few streamers here to have 1M followers on Kick. His early success in mobile gaming allowed him to build a large, international audience that later transitioned into live broadcasts. Unlike newer MENA streamers whose growth is platform-native, Atro represents an earlier generation of creators who expanded from video content into livestreaming. He has also been making great use of other social media to advertise his stream, such as TikTok, where he uploads highlights and clips of broadcasts to over 7M followers. #5 Ilyas El Maliki Ilyas El Maliki emerged as one of Morocco’s most influential digital personalities. His involvement in the new expansion of the Kings League to the region marked a major turning point in his career. His broadcasts of the media football league have generated his highest peak viewerships on Kick ever, setting a record of over 600,000 Peak Viewers. On top of these highly popular Kings League broadcasts, he also hosted many highly-watched Just Chatting broadcasts. Ilyas El Maliki participated in many of this year’s most popular gaming trends in livestreaming, such as playing some EA Sports FC 2025, trying his hand at RP content in GTA V, and many other viral games.  #4 sxb Saudi streamer Ahmed “sxb” Alqahtani is one of MENA’s most popular creators, and one of the longest-standing top streamers on Kick. As of the end of 2025, he boasted over 1.45M Kick followers, and he continues to hold one of the top average viewerships on the whole platform.  While other top creators who are also involved in the Kings League saw most of their viewership come from its category, sxb continued to see most of his watch time come in through Respect RP: a category for a specific GTA V roleplaying server. Sxb is still one of MENA’s top gaming streamers, and his Rocket League, ARC Raiders, and other gaming streams all receive platform-leading viewership. #3 drb7h Mofareh “drb7h” Al Asiri is one of Saudi Arabia’s most established livestreamers, with content spanning GTA V roleplay, sports-related broadcasts, and large collaborative streams. He has long been a top creator for the region and is one of Saudi Arabia’s most well-known online celebrities.  He began building his audience several years ago through consistent content and gradually transitioned into large-scale roleplay streams as Arabic RP servers gained popularity. This shift proved pivotal, allowing him to anchor long-running storylines that encouraged repeat viewing and extended watch sessions. Some of his Respect RP broadcasts for 2025 received over 200,000 Peak Viewers.  Beyond roleplay, drb7h’s channel regularly features sports-related broadcasts, reaction content, and major collaborative streams with other Saudi and regional creators. These high-profile collaborations significantly boosted his visibility and positioned him as a central figure within the Saudi streaming ecosystem, rather than a single-category creator. #2 Absi Hani “absi” Al-Qablan is a wildly popular Jordanian streamer who transitioned into livestreaming after building a massive following on short-form video platforms. His comedic background translated well to live content, where humor and audience interaction became the core of his broadcasts. Absi represents one of the clearest examples of cross-platform migration in the MENA livestreaming space. Before focusing on live content, he built a massive following on TikTo, where he built up millions of followers, establishing a recognizable on-camera persona long before livestreaming became central to his brand. This existing audience provided a strong foundation when he transitioned into live broadcasts. He was one of the fastest-growing streamers on this ranking, and certainly the most impressive. Year-on-year, his watch time increased by over 500% to land at over 57.5M Hours Watched for 2025, which was enabled by a 240% increase to his Average Viewers. Similar to other top streamers, the Respect RP GTA server and his coverage of the Kings League were his most popular content of the year.  #1 Maherco Maher “maherco” Sultaneh stands as the most prominent MENA streamer of 2025, with a career defined by consistency, versatility, and broad audience appeal. He streams a wide variety of content, including Rocket League, PUBG Mobile, IRL segments, and collaborative broadcasts. Maherco emerged as the defining MENA streamer of 2025, combining high-volume output with an unusually broad content portfolio. For the year, he broadcasted over 2,800 hours, something few could replicate for the year; this was crucial in his accumulation of an eye-watering 84.95M Hours Watched. A key factor in Maherco’s dominance has been his ability to sustain viewership across multiple categories rather than relying on a single flagship game. While Rocket League remains one of his most recognizable titles, party games, casual multiplayer content, and conversational streams all contribute meaningfully to his overall reach. For the year, he was live across over 460 different categories, highlighting his dedication to broadcasting and openness to trying out new things on stream. Most watched MENA streamers of 2025 Rank Streamer Hours Watched Platform 1 Maherco 84.95M Kick 2 Absi 57.51M Kick 3 drb7h 42.94M Kick 4 sxb 32.32M Kick 5 ilyaselmaliki 27.01M Kick 6 Atro 22.61M Kick 7 Raydin 18.8M Kick 8 Bougassaa 16.17M Kick 9 3mr 14.96M Kick 10 vodkafunky 13.79M Kick