Facebook Gaming Surpasses YouTube Gaming!

People recently spent more time watching their favorite streamers on Facebook Gaming than on YouTube Gaming for the first time ever. This is according to Streamlabs’ Q3 2021 Live Streaming Industry Report, which was released on Wednesday.

The company claims that between August and September, viewers watched 1.29 billion hours of content on Facebook Gaming, up 9.2 percent from the previous quarter. The amount of content watched on YouTube Gaming, on the other hand, increased from 1.294 billion hours in Q2 2021 to 1.13 billion hours in the most recent three-month period. Since peaking at the end of last year, Google’s platform has seen a steady decline in viewership.

YouTube’s struggles are truly surprising given the company’s recent large investments in talent such as DrLupo and TimTheTatman. The achievement, according to Steamlabs, is due to Facebook Gaming’s international popularity, as well as the recent rollout of features like co-streaming. It’s difficult to say whether Facebook will be able to maintain its lead over YouTube. The platform’s total hours streamed and unique channels both decreased over the same time period. These numbers are currently 17.1 million and 440,000, respectively, down 17.8% and 48% from the previous quarter. Steamlabs, for what it’s worth, believes the company is on the right track.

Twitch, on the other hand, ran into its own set of issues. Last quarter, people watched 5.79 billion hours of content. Obviously, that’s more than Facebook and YouTube combined, but it’s also an 11% drop from the Q2 2021 viewership figures. Furthermore, the above figure represents a 22% decrease from the previous year. Simultaneously, Twitch experienced its first-ever year-over-year decline in unique channels, falling from 10.6 million in Q3 2020 to 10.4 million in Q3 2021. Twitch remains the dominant platform in the space, with a 70% share of the market in terms of hours watched, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.