Elden Ring Dominates Twitch

One of the most eagerly anticipated games for 2022 was FromSoftware’s newest installment in the Dark Souls series. And the excitement for Elden Ring hasn’t died after a week.

According to SullyGnome’s statistics, Elden Ring was the most-watched kind of content on Twitch with 74.58 million hours seen over the past seven days, approximately 10 million more hours than Just Chatting and more than twice the viewership of any other game. Though the game is largely a PvE RPG, the open world’s massive size has provided players with much to chew on, and the sheer number of content has proven to be a gold mine for content creators.

As one might anticipate, xQc, Twitch’s most-watched content creator, is also the most-watched Elden Ring streamer. The popular variety streamer racked up more than three million hours viewed in the first week after the game’s introduction, averaging 74,104 viewers on average and peaking at more than 96,000. The other streamers who made it to the top echelon of Elden Ring audience achieved so in one of two ways: by broadcasting a large number of hours or by having impressive viewership averages.

Stylishnoob4, Hanryang1125, and Sardoche—three of the top ten streamers in the game—posted more than 80 hours of airtime in the category. Two additional streamers amassed over 70 hours of footage. 

While those numbers aren’t necessarily sustainable, they aren’t unusual for content creators to do during particularly big game releases. 

Other channels, such as Asmongold and Fextralife, were able to record over one million hours of viewing time while playing the game, despite having more regular airtime counts in the 20 to 35-hour range. With only 21, Asmongold had the fewest hours streamed of anyone in the top ten players, and his average audience was just under 58,000. Only xQc had a higher average. 

Because of the nature of single-player games, Elden Ring’s viewership has progressively declined since its release, but it peaked at such a high point that it dominated the streaming scene in just seven days. While Elden Ring is unlikely to continue this level of popularity, its ability to captivate the whole industry and draw in the people speaks volumes about the game’s popularity and success.