January 4 SuperData has clarified that Twitch’s revenue, which covers ads, donation, subscription and sponsorship, only dwarfs YouTube’s Gaming division.
The streaming industry had lots of highs points last year. Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in every single day to watch their favourite streamers, the mainstream media started to cover streaming news, and new exclusivity deals by the likes of Mixer, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming rocked the industry. But despite losing some of it’s biggest streamers, Twitch actually generated more revenue than YouTube Gaming in 2019.
The Amazon-owned streaming platform made $1.54 billion in GVC last year compared to YouTube Gaming’s $1.46 billion according to a report by Nielsen-owned SuperData. GVC is defined by SuperData as the sum of ad revenue, donation revenue, subscription revenue, and sponsorship revenue, and covers any video content, including live streams and videos on demand, featuring a video game title or event. It’s worth stating that this only covers YouTube’s gaming division and not the revenue of the entire platform and that there are different costs associated with videos and streaming.
Ad revenue made the most for both Twitch and YouTube Gaming, although it’s clear that Twitch profits more from subscriptions than its competitor. In fact, the report states Twitch’s subscription revenue accounts for 8% of the share, compared to YouTube Gaming’s 2%.
The report also explores the impact that exclusivity deals have had on the streaming industry. Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins was the first to make the move to Mixer to help “everyone else” and was followed by the likes of Michael ‘Shroud’ Grzesiek and Soleil ‘EwOk’ Wheeler who joined him on the Microsoft-owned platform. Jeremy ‘Disguised Toast’ Wang and Gonzalo ‘ZeRo’ Barrios also moved to Facebook, and Jack ‘CouRage’ Dunlop signed with YouTube Gaming.
With Twitch locking down streamers like Benjamin ‘DrLupo’, Saqib ‘Lirik’ Zahid, and Timothy ‘TimTheTatman’ Betar, it’s clear that the move towards exclusivity deals is here to stay.
As SuperData points out in the report, these type of deals are another source of income for streamers, but platforms need to find established names to be able to make these deals worth it in the long run.
The streamers might not be worrying about the sub or viewer count anymore, but there’s a lot more at stake for the platforms. How Twitch, Mixer, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook approach exclusivity deals this year will, ultimately, define their success in 2020.
