Here at Streams Charts we’ve combed through the data for Q2 and collected the most-popular YouTube Gaming streamers of the quarter. YouTube Gaming remains one of the most diverse streaming platforms available: with large viewerships from Japanese, to Brazilian, and American creators. For this list, we’ve excluded channels belonging to organisations to highlight and showcase some of the biggest community streamers on YouTube Gaming.
Most Watched YouTube Gaming Streamers in Q2 2023
At the top of this ranking presented by HyperX is NOBRU, a Brazillian streamer with 14.4M subscribers. The Brazillian creator racked up over 9.04M Hours Watched throughout Q2. Garena Free Fire, a mobile Battle Royale game, was the majority of their content, making up over 300 hours of their Airtime for the quarter.
Coming up in second and third place are Pekora Ch. and Kuzuha, respectively. Pekora Ch. is the most-popular VTuber from Japan per Hours Watched and in Q2 she collected 8.37M Hours Watched. Pekora is a variety streamer who streams all different sorts of games. In Q2 of this year, the hololive affiliated creator streamed Minecraft, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts, to just name a few.
Whereas Pekora Ch. is the largest Japanese VTuber for the quarter, Kuzuha is the most-popular male VTuber from the land of the rising sun. In Q2 Kuzuha streamed all the triple-A heavy hitters: Street Fighter 6, Valorant, League of Legends and many more. Kuzuha, a member of the NIJISANJI agency, amassed 7.16M Hours Watched throughout the quarter. Although close on the heels of Pekora, the large discrepancy between their Airtime shows Pekora still has the edge over Kuzuha.
Read more: Top VTubers of June 2023 — ironmouse reigns supreme
Next is another creator from Asia, Jonathan Liandi. The Indonesian streamer reached 6.38M Hours Watched for the quarter and reached this milestone through streaming Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Johnathan previously played Mobile Legends professionally. Under the alias of “Emperor” the streamer finished on the podium spots of some A-Tier events. Since retiring he’s moved his focus onto streaming and currently has 5.46M subscribers on YouTube, making him the third-most-popular creator on the list per subscriber count.
Moving over to Europe, Nexxuz World is up next. The Spanish creator just fell short of six million, with 5.97M Hours Watched in the quarter. The creator focused his content on Ark: Survival Evolution, Grand Theft Auto V, and took part in Bellum. Bellum was a Rust event for Spanish-speaking streamers that ran from the 11th to the 17th of June. Nexxuz’s streams were hugely successful during this period, reaching 209K Hours Watched for a single stream: making this his most successful stream in over a year.
In sixth place, we finally reach our first English-speaking streamer. TimTheTatman is an American streamer and Shooter enthusiast. The American began streaming on Twitch in 2012 but announced an exclusive deal with YouTube in 2021. Tim recently broke the 5M subscribers milestone on YouTube, earning 120K of these during Q2. Tim amassed 5.5M Hours Watched in total for the quarter, and while Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive remained his two most-watched and most-streamed games, he did take a break to play some Only Up!. The Korean indie game fetched him his highest amount of concurrent viewers for the quarter, with 57.5K viewers simultaneously tuning in to watch him fall.
Back to the Land of the Rising VTubers, Miko Ch. managed to break the 5M mark, reaching 5.18M Hours Watched. The VTuber who is affiliated with hololive is a variety streamer, like most other VTubers. Miko streamed games such as Minecraft and Persona 4 Golden, but also retro games like Super Mario World. Miko amassed over 1.1M Hours Watched playing Minecraft alone in Q2. Miko claimed her spot on the list despite having the least amount of subscribers out of anyone in this top ten: a mere 1.79M subscribers.
Ludwig, the ex-Twitch streamer turned pure YouTuber, made the cut with 4.85M Hours Watched. Although only making 7th on the list, Ludwig had an extremely successful quarter for himself, gaining almost 1M subscribers throughout the three months. Despite this huge growth, Ludwig had the lowest Average Viewers figure out of all most-watched streamers, with 14.1K viewers watching his stream at any point on average. Ludwig streamed some of his favourite games throughout the quarter, with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Valorant taking the cake.
Following the mogul is IShowSpeed. It seems unfair to classify Speed as up-and-coming at this point, with 17.7M subscribers at the end of Q2 he’s one of the most subscribed-to channels in YouTube Gaming history. Nevertheless, his momentum has done anything but slow down. Just in Q2 alone, Speed was the 9th most watched streamer with only 146 hours of Airtime, the lowest amount on this list. Speed gained 4.7M Hours Watched in Q2, streaming gaming content and IRL in Portugal, trying to find his long-lost love, Ronaldo.
Claiming the last spot on this list is the Doc himself. DrDisRespect, the two-timer, garnered 4.7M Hours Watched throughout the quarter, just 50K more than Koyori Ch. in 11th place. The Doc streamed 1.4M Hours Watched worth of Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, but also took a break from his regular Shooter content with streams of OnlyUp!. The Korean Foddian-style game proves to have been very successful for all kinds of streamers throughout the quarter. The Doc received his Peak Viewership for the quarter of 89K when streaming Only Up!, amassing 607K Hours Watched for these streams despite only 14 hours of Airtime.
Most Popular YouTube Gaming Streamers in Q2 2023
Looking towards Peak Viewers for the quarter, Pekora managed to overtake NOBRU for the top spot in this category, boasting 242K Peak Viewers. The VTuber reached this peak during a Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 tournament, in which various hololive-affiliated VTubers came together for a collaboration.
Jonathan Liandi was hot on her heels, reaching a peak of 231K concurrent viewers. The ex-professional Mobile Legends player returned to the discipline to stream the Semi-Finals of the Southeast Asia Cup 2023, supporting the Indonesian team ONIC Esports. Although unable to reach the same peaks as the official tournament and Mobile Legends YouTube channels, Jonathan was one of the most popular streamers to cover the event.
IShowSpeed took third place, reaching his peak of 169K viewers during his IRL streams in Portugal. Viewership reached its peak as Speed was waiting around after a game for a chance to meet Ronaldo. Eventually, the Portuguese footballer did show and Speed was able to get a picture and share a handshake and a siii.
Next on the list is 渋谷ハル, Shibuya Hal, a Vtuber affiliated with Neo-Porte. He founded the agency in 2021 and is also affiliated with TSM as a streamer. He reached 165K Peak Viewers during the Vtuber Most Cooperatitive Tournament #5, an Apex Legends tournament for 20 VTuber teams. Shibuya played the role of commentator for the event and watched as his viewer count rose and rose and rose to 165K. Funnily enough, this makes his stream of the event his second-most popular stream ever, beaten out by the previous iteration of the same tournament.
R7 Tatsumaki took home fifth with 127K concurrent viewers. Another Indonesian creator, he also was previously a Mobile Legends professional player but he is currently inactive. He was also a Dota 2 before transitioning to the mobile game. R7 debuted for Mobile Legends in 2019 and since then has taken home three first-place trophies at the MPL Indonesia events. R7 reached his peak viewership while costreaming the 32nd SEA Games, bringing the Indonesian community together to cheer for their players.
NOBRU fell down to sixth on this list, achieving 124K Peak Viewers in Q2. NOBRU was the official livestream broadcast for CPN 2023 Stage 1, a Brazillian tournament for Garena Free Fire. The tournament reached its viewership peak during the Grand Finals.
Miko Ch is next, the hololive VTuber hosted her second most popular stream ever on the 2nd of May. The stream was a collaboration stream featuring many other Vtubers from the hololive agency. The stream easily became Miko’s most-popular stream of the year, her second most popular stream for 2023 coming in early January with 96.6K concurrent viewers tuning in.
The rest of the most-popular streamers for Q2 are some fresh faces, and coming in first is DjMaRiiO from Spain. The Spanish streamer peaked at 112K concurrent viewers during his watch party for King’s League, a hugely successful seven-a-side football tournament featuring Spanish-speaking creators and personalities. DjMaRiiO streamed the game between Ultimate Móstoles and xBuyer Team, ending in a 3-0 victory for the former team.
Another Indonesian Mobile Legends streamer, Oura Gaming made the list with 104K concurrent viewers. The creator with 8M subscribers on YouTube also costreamed the 32nd SEA Games. Not only are mobile games becoming a huge industry in Asia especially, but the esports scene and national pride for teams there are booming.
Finally, Kanata Ch., another hololive affiliated VTuber, took the ultimate spot. Kanata reached her best-ever stream viewership peak with 103K concurrent viewers tuning in. The VTuber celebrated her birthday with other hololive streamers.
Most Watched YouTube Gaming Streamers per Average Viewers in Q2 2023.
Moving on to the Average Viewers metric, this metric can be helpful to analyse how streamers perform on a more consistent basis, excluding outlying peaks and ebbs. For a more objective analysis and to avoid corrupted data, we only include streamers who managed to stream for more than 100 hours during the quarter.
Moving to Average Viewers we can see Jonathan Liandi took the top spot, with 38K Average Viewers. Followed closely by IShowSpeed, his second-place ranking is unsurprising considering his monstrous following on YouTube compared to the others on the list. VTubers also were hugely popular, with three hololive affiliated streamers making the list and also Kuzuha. Subaru is the only VTuber to appear in this data and none of the previous metrics.
MARSHA OZAWA and FREITAS Lives are the only other two creators we haven’t looked at before. Marsha is another Indonesian Mobile Legends creator who received huge viewership costreaming various Mobile Legends events. FREITAS Lives is a similar mobile games creator, instead focusing on Garena Free Fire and streaming his own gameplay rather than costreaming tournaments.
YouTube was the most-watched live-streaming platform during Q2 and YouTube Gaming made up 18% of the total traffic. If you’re interested in reading more about the data for Q2, check out our Global Live Streaming Landscape piece.
