Overall Twitch viewership shrank a bit in July, and streams of top games as well League of Legends en Fortnite fell with it. But in other corners of Twitch, viewership is still growing: the platform’s “Just Chatting” category saw millions more hours viewed, and there were also increases in Twitch’s “Creative” and “Music & Performing Arts” categories.
Just Chatting grew to 176 million hours viewed in July, up from 166 million in June, according to the latest stream report from StreamElements and Arsenal.gg, and it remains the largest section on Twitch. Meanwhile, the above-mentioned games fell by 5 to 6 percent in the viewership. Fortnite remains in third place with 91 million hours, down from 95 million in June.
The continued expansion of non-play categories is somewhat more impressive as Twitch’s pandemic-related growth begins to decline. While the platform’s Creative and Music categories fell in May, both are still well above their pre-pandemic numbers. Twitch’s general shareholding grew more than 50 percent from the first to the second quarter of the year, according to StreamElements and Arsenal.gg’s latest report.
Twitch’s Just Chatting category has exploded in popularity since it was first launched two years ago. While other categories of non-gaming are still small in comparison – there were just 17.6 million hours of music content streamed and 6.5 million hours in the creative category in July – they have taken on a new importance as locations for persons are closed. The music category in particular has offered a way for musicians to reach their audience and earn some money remotely.
