The Game Awards broke its own viewership record, more than doubling the live streams from last year’s show. Over 26.2 million global live streams, up 128 percent from 2017’s record-setting performance of 11.5 million live streams, were recorded for the event that took place at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Dec. 6.
Streamed on multiple platforms including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, this year’s Game Awards became one of Twitch’s biggest live streams ever with over 1.13 million concurrent viewers watching the show on the platform at its peak, nearly doubling last year’s Twitch viewership. Meanwhile, more than 3,300 Twitch creators co-streamed the program live on their channels, up over 140 percent from last year, with many translating the show in real time for their fans.
The number of concurrent viewers on YouTube also more than doubled from 2017’s broadcast, while overall peak concurrency for the show is estimated to have reached over 4 million global viewers.
On Twitter, the Game Awards reached 1.3 times more unique viewers compared with 2017’s show.
Overseas, the Game Awards-related posts earned more than 56 million views from 310K unique individual postings on the country’s social platform Weibo.
Globally, the Game Awards aired across more than 45 digital video networks including Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook Live, GameSpot, IGN, PlayStation Store, Mixer and Steam, as well as over a dozen networks in China and with live distribution in Japan, Russia, Germany, South East Asia, South Korea and Brazil.
“Five years in, it’s amazing to see the Game Awards continue to grow both domestically and internationally,” said Geoff Keighley, creator, producer and host of the awards. “These results further validate our focus on an all-digital, no-friction approach of sharing this show globally across more than 45 video platforms, not to mention the growing interest and passion for video games around the world.”
Fan voting for the show also increased by 50 percent, with more than 10.5 million logged-in votes collected.
Meanwhile, on broadcast television, CBS’ inaugural Gamers’ Choice Awards averaged 1.46 million viewers when it debuted Sunday night. The pretaped fan-voted awards show, which is not related to the Game Awards, followed the network’s afternoon airing of NFL football games.
The Game Awards has been steadily increasing its viewership numbers since its inaugural show in 2014. Below are the live stream numbers for each Game Awards.
2018: 26.2 million
2017: 11.5 million
2016: 3.8 million
2015: 2.3 million
2014: 1.9 million
