YouTube Gaming breaks 2020 records with 100B watched hours

Earlier this week, YouTube Gaming came out with data from 2020 showing that the gaming section saw over 100 billion hours watched, among other major records.

Image credit to YouTube Gaming.

100 Billion Hours Watched

With this milestone of 100 billion hours watched on YouTube Gaming, the company shared other positive updates in 2020. In terms of video game live streams, watch time hit over 10 billion hours. Top creators like Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, 100 Thieves content creator, and “LazarBeam” commemorated 2020 for YouTube. Even famed streamer “Valyrae” grew to become one of YouTube Gaming’s biggest female creators.

When it comes to specific video games on YouTube, some interesting records came about this year. Across 2020, Minecraft videos were the most-watched game with 201 billion views, topping other games by over 100 billion views. After that comes Roblox at 75 billion views and Garena Free Fire at 72 billion views. As for live streamed games, Minecraft led the roster again, followed by Garena Free Fire and Fortnite in third.

In 2020:
✅ 80,000+ YouTube Gaming Creators hit 100,000 subs
✅ 1,000+ YouTube Gaming Creators made it to 5 million subs
✅ 350+ YouTube Gaming Creators reached 10 million subs pic.twitter.com/whyZtVEfDQ

— YouTube Gaming (@YouTubeGaming) December 9, 2020

YouTube Gaming Records

The blog post also shared the various celebration YouTube helped make possible. According to the post, YouTube Gaming hosted five charity tournaments to help with COVID-19 relief in 2020. Apart from that, the platform helped bring tremendous success to new titles like VALORANT and Cyberpunk 2077. In terms of esports, major events like the Call of Duty League, Overwatch League, ESL’s Counter-Strike Pro League, and more were held there.

Another major record the brand saw was holding over 40 million active gaming channels. Of these 40 million active channels, over 80 thousand creators reached the 100 thousand subscriber goal. In that same category, more than 1 thousand creators reached 5 million subscribers. Finally, 350 gaming content creators hit 10 million subscribers on their YouTube Gaming channels.

Overall, YouTube Gaming saw an excellent year of growth in 2020. Although some of it came from people everywhere quarantining and relying on digital entertainment, this is the platform people grew to love. 2021 will likely be another great year for this brand. Perhaps the 100 billion hours watched record will be broken in 2021 by YouTube Gaming?

Written by Justin Amin

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