Multiplayer games have eclipsed singleplayer titles as the single most popular way for gamers to enjoy their time. Many games can retain a sizable and active community for years after release, which has only been strengthened by seasonal updates and patches. Live streaming is another factor in the growth of multiplayer titles, which has become an integral part of many games.
Streaming multiplayer titles is a symbiotic relationship between content creators and developers; streamers covering new content updates or new games can receive a boost to their viewership, which also exposes more and more potential customers to the game itself. Many developers are interacting directly with live streaming platforms and streamers for this reason, although some developers simply sit back and enjoy the benefits of their games’ community doing the work for them.
One example of the community doing the work comes with role-playing servers. Many of Twitch’s, and streaming in general, most popular titles cover role-playing scenarios. These streams take place in a certain video game, but content creators will interact with other gamers, often other content creators, rather than play the game as it was necessarily intended.
Carli Levi noted that the social dynamics and aspects of multiplayer games are one of the most crucial roles in the appeal and longevity of multiplayer games. She expanded that Fortnite excels “not only through engaging gameplay but also by creating spaces for players to interact socially”. These social interactions are critical for the popularity of multiplayers, not only on their own but also in regards to their live streaming coverage.
Role-playing & community servers: GTA V, Rust, Minecraft
Grand Theft Auto V is one of the world’s most popular games ever, and it is also consistently one of the most-watched categories in live streaming across various platforms. The popularity of GTA V is not necessarily due to its in-game content, but rather to the role-playing options available on community servers.
Looking towards Japanese-language statistics for Grand Theft Auto V on Twitch, this phenomenon is clearly visible. Compared to today, Japanese-language viewership for GTA V was essentially non-existent on Twitch before July, 2023. Then, Crazy Raccoon and Vaultroom set up a GTA V roleplaying server, and viewership exploded overnight. The VCR GTA V server has been incredibly popular, even eclipsing the original Rust server.
Role-playing servers drove GTA V, Rust, & Minecraft to the top games of Twitch
VCR had initially created a Rust server, which is another game which benefits heavily from these community role-playing servers. Rust’s language statistics show clear and extreme jumps in viewership for various languages when these community servers are set up. Spanish, Japanese, and English viewership have all experienced massive waves in increased watch time thanks to these servers, and brings new viewers to streamers participating in the event, as well as spreading awareness of the game itself.
Similarly, one of Minecraft’s stronger sides is satisfactory multiplayer experience. The title’s community servers have brought massive viewership to a game that has long been established as one of the world’s favourites. Special events and community servers have brought waves of viewership across various language demographics, such as Spanish, English, Korean, German, and Japanese.
Free to play model and general popularity: Fortnite
Fortnite is unequivocally Twitch’s most-streamed game. Throughout April of this year, Fortnite was streamed by 15.7K Peak Channels, and held 7.9K Average Channels through the entire month. In both of these metrics, Fortnite was the top category on Twitch for April.
Fortnite’s secret weapon is two-fold. Firstly, the free-to-play model the game is built on makes it extremely accessible and attractive for all gamers. This low barrier to entry is compounded by the fact that the game runs well on most computers, something many new triple-A releases cannot claim. The game is also consistently receiving new content and updates, which helps not only keep fans interested, but brings something new to watch for live viewers.
However, Fortnite also has one of the lowest Viewers per Channel metrics of the top 20 most-watched games of April, 2024. The pure and raw popularity of Fortnite makes it extremely attractive for everyone to stream, which oversaturates the category on live streaming platforms and leaves many channels with few viewers or even none. While it is true that Fortnite is Twitch’s most-streamed game, its own popularity works against itself as fewer viewers tune in compared to other titles such as GTA V or Valorant.
Seasonal updates and Twitch Drops: Diablo IV, Dead by Daylight, Sea of Thieves
It has become the norm for many multiplayer titles to keep their player base interested by continuously dropping new updates and releases to always have something fresh on offer. As of May 31, there are three titles in the top 50 most-watched of Twitch for the month which have experienced significant watch time growth thanks to game updates and the integration of Twitch Drops: Diablo IV, Dead by Daylight, and Sea of Thieves.
Dead by Daylight has been teasing a lot in the works lately. The game is approaching its 8th year anniversary with some big plans for a 4-week-long festival to celebrate, it recently announced two new games including a co-op PVE shooter, and it announced a brand new game modifier. All of these announcements drove the game to its highest peak viewership in over two years and an increase of 12% to its watch time.
Sea of Thieves made a wide array of gameplay changes and added some new skins to the game. Although these updates are perhaps not as groundbreaking as Dead by Daylight’s, the integration of Twitch Drops multiple times throughout May has heavily boosted its watch time. The game has received a 58% increase to Hours Watched for the month, shooting the game up the Twitch rankings and likely bringing more new eyes to the sea-faring game.
Diablo IV's new update has brought massive streamers such as shroud back to the title
Finally, Diablo IV released its 1.4.0 patch in mid-May with many changes. Since then, the developers have been hard at work, bringing out four more updates since this release. The updates have brought major streamers back to the game and boosted the game’s watch time by 476%.
All of these games are bringing new eyes to their titles through a mixture of game updates and Twitch Drops integration. These are proven methods to increasing your multiplayer title’s presence on live streaming platforms, bringing new players to the game, and also welcoming back veteran players.
Community-ran events: Trackmania
Finally, Trackmania has enjoyed a larger increase in watch time than any of the previous game’s we have looked at. The game achieved a 554% increase in watch time for the month of May, thanks to the new Deep Dip 2 event run by the community.
16 of the game’s mappers created a foddian-style tower map, where players must ascend to the top without making a mistake which could lose them all of their progress. The map has captured the attention of many of the game’s favourite streamers, especially considering there is a $31.7K prize pool on the line. Many of the game’s top streamers, such as Wirtual, Bren_TM2, and Scrapie, have not only recorded increased Airtime for the month, but a significant increase to their watch time. Wirtual has recorded a 2138% increase to his watch time for his Twitch channel, and Bren_TM2 has recorded an increase of 6355% for his streams’ watch time throughout the month.
Trackmania’s presence on live streaming platforms has rapidly increased, thanks to the hard work of the community creating one of the most exciting community-ran game events of the year. Not only does this explosion in watch time reflect the passion of the community for this racing game, but it also has been bringing the title to many new viewers, expanding the player base for the game and exposing countless new Twitch viewers to the racing title.
