2020 has been a rough year, but all that extra time we've been spending indoors has been a boon for both streamers and content creators. In fact, YouTube Gaming has officially released its 2020 stats, showing off a record-breaking year for the service.
The announcement revealed 2020 to be the best year in YouTube Gaming history, with over 100 billion watch time hours and more than 40 million active channels. YouTube said "there has never been a better time to be a YouTube Gaming creator," as over 1,000 creators hit 5 million subscribers this year and more than 350 have 10 million subscribers.
If you're thinking of streaming on YouTube Gaming, Minecraft is the game to beat. Despite the fact that it's over a decade old, it saw 201 billion views in 2020 – making it the most viewed game on the service. Here's the full top five list:
- Minecraft
- Roblox
- Garena Free Fire
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Fortnite
The list of the most watched live games of 2020 is similar, with the addition of a popular mobile game:
- Minecraft
- Garena Free Fire
- Fortnite
- Grand Theft Auto V
- PUBG Mobile
All told, over 100 billion hours of gaming content was watched on YouTube throughout the year. To put things into perspective, YouTube claimed "that's like traveling to Neptune and back 475,000 times." If that insightful comment still doesn't clarify how great 2020 was, how about knowing back in 2018 that number was only 50 billion? In just two years, YouTube Gaming was able to double its viewing hours.
Some of the top creators in 2020 should come as no surprise if you're active in the space, with FGTeeV, Slogo, Jelly, and Mikecrack taking some of the top honors. However, YouTube Gaming also mentions a few breakout creators (listed in no particular order):
- Valkyrae
- Corpse Gaming
- Dream
- GeorgeNotFound
- EddieVR
- Tiki
- iBerleezy
A big trend the service noticed throughout 2020 was an increase in live gaming streams, making up nearly 10 billion watch time hours. It's clearly been a great year for the service, and we're curious to see what it has in store for 2021.