As we exit spooky season, October was a strong month for YouTube Live and the red platform saw a slight uptick in watch time, active channels, and other metrics. October also saw some fresh faces appear in the top channels of Gaming section of the platform, representing all corners of the globe.
Throughout October, YouTube Live saw 396.6K Active Channels go live on the red platform and recorded at least 10 viewers. For the Halloween month, YouTube Live achieved 3.393B Hours Watched, a 6% increase from the watch time garnered in September.
3.393B Hours Watched is the largest sum of watch time received by YouTube Live during 2023 so far; October was the most successful month of the year for drawing in viewership. Although YouTube Live has increased its watch time, the proportion of the watch time generated by Gaming streams is falling. In August, 15% of YouTube’s total watch time came from YouTube Gaming, this fell to 13% of total watch time in September, and it lies at only 12% for October.
3.6K different games were broadcasted on YouTube Live for October, and 4.57M Average Viewers were watching these games throughout the month. With the average concurrent viewers figure for the month increasing by 3%, which streamers and content creators were the most influential in creating viewership for the platform?
Most-watched YouTube Gaming streamers in October 2023
アキロゼCh。Vtuber/ホロライブ所属, known as Aki Rosenthal, was the most-watched streamer of October, recording 3.84M Hours Watched on her channel alone. October was an extremely successful month for the Japanese VTuber, and she rocketed to the top of the platform. October was the first month she received more than 1M+ Hours Watched and her watch time increased by over 1000% compared to September.
She achieved this monster viewership thanks to the VCR ARK event in Japan. Many Japanese streamers and content creators are taking place in the VCR events, and the event is exposing many smaller streamers to a much larger audience through collaborations with other creators. Our top-ranked VTuber of the month is proof of the success of these VCR events in Japan.
Highlights of Aki Rosenthal on the VCR ARK server
Behind the VTuber with 3.6M Hours Watched was Hoàng Luân of Vietnam. The Vietnamese streamer saw explosive growth comparable to the VTubers, although this was achieved by Hoàng Luân thanks to esports tournaments rather than community streaming events. He has been covering Worlds 2023 as a community streamer, and was one of the major reasons why Vietnamese-language viewership for the esports event has been hugely influential for the tournament’s overall watch time. If you’re curious about how integral Vietnamese viewership has been for the League of Legends World Championship, check out the coverage of the event on Esports Charts.
In third was NOBRU of Brazil, a streamer who mostly focuses on Garena Free Fire, a battle royale mobile gaming title. Garena Free Fire is hugely popular in Brazil, and the region is one of the fastest-growing regions in terms of both live-streaming viewership and mobile gaming esports.
CEROL in 9th place of our rankings with 1.77M Hours Watched is another Brazillian Garena Free Fire streamer, meaning Brazil is the only country excluding Japan to feature multiple representatives in our monthly rankings. On the other side of the globe, Jonathan Liandi represents Indonesia and the most popular mobile game in that region: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The Indonesian creator received 1.72M HW thanks to his coverage of ML:BB esports events, and he is a regular appearance in our YouTube Gaming rankings.
IShowSpeed is the sole North American and only English-speaking creator of our top 10 ranking for October. Speed received 2.88M Hours Watched and ranked 4th for the month, despite being live for only 41 hours throughout October. Speed made up for this low Airtime by hosting his most-watched stream ever during October: IRL coverage of the Ballon d'Or event. Speed received 1.07M Hours Watched for the singular stream and reached over 548K concurrent viewers at peak.
IShowSpeed’s highlights of his Ballon d’Or stream
Moving past Speed and down the rankings, there are three Japanese VTubers in a row: Kuzuha Channel, Pekora Ch. 兎田ぺこら, and Koyori ch. 博衣こより - holoX -. Kuzuha did participate in the VCR ARK event, and a majority of his watch time for the month came from these broadcasts. However, all three of these creators are hugely popular VTubers of their own, and Kuzuha and Pekora were able to rank within the top 10 of this month without the help of the VCR event.
The final streamer we haven’t looked at yet was the Spanish DjMaRiiO. The Spaniard is hugely successful on YouTube Gaming and he received the majority of his watch time thanks to various football-related content: his coverage of Kings League matches, the Ballon d’Or event, and his gameplay of EA SPORTS FC 24.
Most Popular YouTube Gaming streamers in October 2023
IShowSpeed’s Ballon d’Or stream was the most popular YouTube Gaming stream of the month. The American creator received 548.3K Peak Viewers and was far ahead of all other streamers on the ranking. DjMaRiiO ranked second with 148.5K Peak Viewers, and the Spaniard achieved this peak thanks to his own coverage of the Ballon d’Or event.
Jonathan Liandi achieved 126.5K Peak Viewers during the playoffs of the MPL esports tournament. NOBRU was close behind with 109.3K for his coverage of a Free Fire esports event. Both of these creators were boosted by the growing popularity of mobile gaming esports, and they ranked ahead of Hoàng Luân and his community cast of the traditional esports League of Legends.
The Vietnamese community broadcaster reached 103.8K Peak Viewers thanks to his coverage of the match between Team Liquid and GAM Esports at Worlds 2023. For YouTube Gaming in October, mobile gaming esports disciplines were more popular than traditional PC esports on singular channels.
The inseparable VTuber duo of Pekora and Miko followed close behind, with both of them earning 89K Peak Viewers. Although Pekora and Miko achieved their respective peaks during two different collaborative events, both of them reached their peak viewership thanks to collaborative events with other VTubers and Japanese live-streamers.
GamerFleet was the eighth most popular creator of the month, having reached 88.9K Peak Viewers during a Minecraft livestream. GamerFleet was the first representative of India for our YouTube Gaming rankings of the month. Behind GamerFleet with 80.4K Peak Viewers was EdisonPts, who also achieved his peak viewership thanks to a Minecraft broadcast and the huge audience for this game.
The final most popular creator of our October rankings was R7 Tatsumaki, another Indonesian Mobile Legends: Bang Bang streamer. R7 is an ex-professional Dota 2 player and is a currently inactive ML:BB professional player. His most popular stream of the month was his coverage of the MPL, professional ML:BB league, as he cheered on his team.
Most-watched YouTube Gaming Organisation Channels in October 2023
October was a big month for esports, with disciplines such as Dota 2, League of Legends, and more hosting some of their biggest events of the year. Official broadcasts for these events dominated YouTube Gaming viewership in October, and here we can take a look at some of the biggest channels in esports.
The official Dota 2 channel was the most-watched YouTube Gaming Organisation channel of the month. The official broadcaster for The International event received 8.24M Hours Watched, and hosted coverage of the event in several languages. Russian-language, Chinese, English, and Spanish were all hosted on this one channel, although the English-language broadcasts were the most-watched of these.
The LCK, the official channel of the Korean regional league for League of Legends, was the second-most-watched channel of October with 7M Hours Watched. The Korean broadcaster hosted coverage of the Worlds 2023 event for all Korean-speaking fans of the discipline, and many other channels covering Worlds 2023 appeared in this ranking. Third place went to an English-language broadcaster LoL Esports, and fifth place went to the VCS channel, hosting Vietnamese-language broadcasts of the event.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was also hugely popular, and four different channels covering the esports discipline ranked within the top 10 of the month. MPL Indonesia was the most-watched of these, receiving 6.23M Hours Watched in total. The Mobile Legends: Bang Bang channel hosted both English and Filipino-language broadcasts of the MPL Philippines, and both the MPL Philippines channel and the official MLBB eSports channel appeared further down the ranking.
The final two channels we have yet to look at represented the mobile gaming side of things. Liên Quân Mobile eSports-Garena hosted coverage of the Arena of Valor title, and KRAFTON INDIA ESPORTS covered various Battlegrounds Mobile India events. Although mobile gaming was more popular on singular personal channels, the watch time for organisations was dominated by traditional PC esports in October.
October was a strong month for YouTube Live. The live-streaming platform saw an overall increase in viewership across various metrics, although YouTube Gaming’s contribution to this was diluted by the growing watch time. The YouTube Gaming side of the platform was boosted by special events from Japanese content creators and VTubers, as well as esports tournaments.
Mobile gaming esports are hugely popular on YouTube, partially due to being popular in regions where YouTube is the preferred live-streaming platform, but traditional PC esports were also receiving millions of hours of watch time on the platform, especially from Asian regions.
