February was a quieter month for Twitch, with lower activity from streamers and viewers. With three fewer days than in January, the decline in most metrics was anticipated. Even so, average figures, unaffected by month length, also experienced a slight drop. Additionally, most metrics saw a decline when comparing the month to February 2024, largely due to last year being a leap year, which gave February an extra day.
The drop in metrics isn’t exactly critical, especially since some fell within the statistical margin of error, under one percent. However, what was surprisingly on the rise was the peak number of channels streaming at once. This year, the February peak came on the 15th, and alongside regular broadcasts, there was a notable amount of esports content, including the LEC (League of Legends), Six Invitational (Rainbow Six Siege), and, most importantly, the FNCS Majors in Fortnite, where participants often stream their gameplay live.
The trends in streaming categories were also largely in line with expectations. For one, Marvel Rivals dropped several spots, from fourth to ninth. The game still enjoys popularity among both streamers and viewers, but the initial excitement following the release of Season 1 has waned.
Meanwhile, most of the gaming heavyweights like League of Legends, Counter-Strike, and Valorant experienced a rise in viewership, largely due to the ongoing esports seasons in these titles. Specifically, the winter splits (or their equivalents) wrapped up in the biggest regional LoL leagues, Counter-Strike saw the highly anticipated IEM Katowice, and Valorant hosted the first international tournament of the season, VCT Masters Bangkok.
As expected, Kingdom Come Deliverance II stood out among the new game releases. The critically acclaimed title even surpassed STALKER 2 in viewership on launch day, and by the end of the month, it had overtaken games like Minecraft to break into the top 10. Notably, it's the only single-player game to make it onto the list.
Kai Cenat once again led the channel rankings, though his margin over the competition wasn't as significant as usual. In addition to Cenat, Marc Robert "Caedrel" Lamont racked up over 10 million hours of watch time. February was a busy month for him, especially with his esports co-casting in League of Legends: in addition to covering top leagues, he streamed the performances of his team, Los Ratones. Their breakout success in the tier-2 European league caused a stir, even surpassing premier events in the Americas (LTA) and the Asia-Pacific region (LCP) in viewership.
The official R6 channel was the most successful among organizational channels, with broadcasts of the game's major esports event, the Six Invitational, running all month. The rest of the ranking was notably diverse, with representatives from various regions. Alongside the Americans, who dominated the list, streamers from Japan, Brazil, and Germany also made their way into the top 10.
As for the most popular streams, Kai Cenat took the lead once again, drawing over 254,000 concurrent viewers early in the month while streaming live from the Grammy Awards ceremony, where Kendrick Lamar made a huge splash.
Five channels hit a peak of over 200,000 viewers, with only one being an organizational channel: ESLCS, which broadcast the grand final of IEM Katowice 2024. Notably, in addition to this channel, three co-streamers of the tournament also landed in the top 10 for this metric.
Among those who don't typically appear in such rankings, Polish streamer Dominik "MokrySuchar" Stokłosa stands out. His channel hosted the highly anticipated Polish streamer awards. Additionally, the French channel RMCsport, which specializes in MMA content, made a splash by attracting nearly 150,000 concurrent viewers during the UFC fight between Israel Adesanya and Nassourdine Imavov.
As you may have noticed, we've changed our approach to reporting on female streamers. Recently, more and more female streamers with artificially inflated viewership numbers have been consistently appearing in the top-10 for peak and total watch time. That's why we decided to focus on a different metric that’s less impacted by viewbotting.
In February, the standout in terms of average audience was One True King member Emily "Emiru" Schunk, who averaged nearly 19,000 concurrent viewers per five-minute segment. Rachell "Valkyrae" Marie Hofstetter, who made her return to Twitch, also delivered excellent results, along with several other North American streamers and VTubers such as vedal987 and ironmouse.
