Although the entire game streaming industry saw a considerable viewership drop in the past year, Meta`s Facebook Gaming has suffered the most brutal hit. The platform`s steep decline in viewership in 2022 and the first months of 2023 cut its market share to only a small piece of what it used to have.
According to data presented by CasinosEnLigne.com, Facebook Gaming now has only a 3% share in global game streaming viewership, or one-third of its market share last year.
Facebook Gaming Dropped One Place Behind South Korean Afreeca TV
Game streaming viewership continues fading away across all markets and platforms. After falling for six straight quarters in a row, the global game streaming audience slightly recovered in the first months of 2023 but remained deep below the 2021 levels. According to Stream Hatchet data, gamers and eSports fans spent 7.4 billion hours watching gaming titles on streaming platforms in Q1 2023, or 16% less than in the same quarter a year ago.
Facebook Gaming had a huge part in this drop. The platform`s live-streaming viewership plummeted in 2022, dropping by a massive 56% year-over-year. In Q3 2022, Facebook announced it would shut down its standalone gaming app in response to an already declining audience. As a result, the creator base for the company–unique channels plunged by 74% YoY, going down from 2.17 million in 2021 to just 559,000 by the end of last year.
The Stream Hatchet data showed Facebook Gaming suffered a massive 69% YoY decline in viewership in Q1 2023, which cut its market share from 9% to only 3% and pushed the platform to third place behind Afreeca TV. The South Korean platform, which overtook the third-place position, had a 4% market share in Q1, or 1% more than in the same quarter a year ago.
Statistics show Twitch`s market share increased 4% year-over-year and hit 74% in Q1 2023. YouTube Gaming, which now holds 15% of the game streaming market, grew by 2% in this period.
Facebook Gaming Hit Only 255.4M Hours Watched in Q1; Almost 100M Less than the Chinese Nemo TV
The latest drop pushed Facebook Gaming`s viewership to the lowest point in years, with the platform now lagging behind previously much smaller competitors from China and South Korea.
According to Stream Charts data, YouTube remained the leading platform to watch live streamed content in Q1 2023, with more than 8.1 billion hours watched. Twitch ranked second, with users worldwide watching nearly 5.3 billion hours of live streaming videos on the platform.
Chinese-based Nimo TV ranked third, with its users watching around 350 million hours on the platform between January and March. Afreeca TV followed with 294.4 million hours watched in this period.
Statistics show Facebook Gaming ranked as the fifth platform on this list with 255.4 million hours watched, nearly 100 million less than the Chinese Nemo TV and 60 million less than South Korean Afreeca TV.
