Global Game Viewership Reaches 36.4 Billion Hours... Changing Survival Strategies Amid the Success of "Games to Watch"

Watching Instead of Playing:
Game Companies Embrace the Formula for Success in "Games to Watch"

As the global game market shifts toward video-based consumption and viewing, game companies are changing their survival strategies. Instead of the traditional method of delivering fixed narratives, they are establishing systems from the planning stage that allow different endings depending on user choices. In addition, they are interlinking data across platforms to transform viewers into actual users.

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According to the 'Global Game Industry Trends' report published by the Korea Creative Content Agency on September 3, total global viewing time on live streaming platforms last year amounted to 36.4 billion hours. Based on research by game streaming analytics firm Stream Hatchet, this figure is comparable to the 37.1 billion hours recorded at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, indicating that watching games has become a deeply established consumption habit.

By platform, Twitch ranked first with 19.2 billion hours of viewing. However, its market share fell by 8.3 percentage points compared to the previous year. It was followed by YouTube Gaming with 8.8 billion hours and Kick with 4.5 billion hours. In Korea, SOOP recorded 1.2 billion hours and Naver Chzzzik reached 990 million hours of viewing.

This trend is especially pronounced at events introducing new game titles. For example, there were more than 6,200 channels broadcasting the Summer Game Fest (SGF) held in June. This is a remarkable 12-fold increase in just three years compared to around 500 in 2023, and about five times higher than last year (approximately 1,300 channels). The number of live playbacks also increased by 23% from the previous year.

Simultaneous viewers reached 3,861,571. Considering that the highest number of concurrent viewers on official channels was in the hundreds of thousands, the remainder were enjoying the festivities through individual streamer broadcasts. This suggests that viewers are increasingly drawn to the reactions and commentary of their favorite creators.

Global game companies have become increasingly busy. This is because, for major package games with predetermined endings, a growing number of users simply watch the ending via streaming and then drop out without purchasing the product. For example, when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth was released in February 2024, it attracted 1.6 million hours of Twitch viewing on launch day, but this figure plunged by 66.8% within a week. Initial sales also fell short of expectations.

Conversely, games that generate different outcomes each time are successfully converting viewers into players. Representative examples include League of Legends (LoL), where each match unfolds differently, and Fortnite, which continuously adds user-generated content (UGC). Although Baldur's Gate 3 is a package game, it is designed so that the ending changes depending on dice results and choices, prompting even those who watched full broadcasts to buy the product.

Korean game companies are also incorporating the formula for success of 'viewable games.' Nexon has introduced the 'NConnect' project in collaboration with Chzzzik, a system that links streamer broadcast viewing with in-game rewards. Pearl Abyss and Shift Up are actively utilizing platform integration systems that combine streaming viewership data of their core titles with in-game reward infrastructure in real time. Krafton connects e-sports broadcast viewing via SOOP to viewers' in-game data through a real-time API, enabling prediction results to be immediately reflected in individual game accounts.

An industry insider commented, "We are building a structure where broadcast viewing is combined with in-game data, naturally drawing viewers in as active users. As an event that boosts enjoyment, this approach has an even greater effect when launching new titles."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.