Facebook Gaming overtakes YouTube Gaming viewership after massive streaming surge

According to new data from Streamlabs, Facebook Gaming has overtaken YouTube Gaming viewership as Facebook has made huge strides to improve its gaming section.

Facebook Gaming have pushed hard to be a bigger presence in the livestreaming space. The company has recently taken aim at various Twitch personalities, offering them massive sums of money to join their platform, including a unique offer to pay creators a bonus of $5 – $20 for every new subscriber they get from now until the end of 2021.

Now, they’ve surpassed YouTube Gaming’s viewership numbers proving their commitment and success aren’t a fluke.

Facebook tops YouTube Gaming

Software company Streamlabs, in collaboration with Stream Hatchet, released data for Q3 July 2021 – September 2021 showing how well the big three of streaming in Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook Gaming performed over that time.

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The results were surprising, as Facebook achieved more hours watched and more hours streamed than YouTube did in that time period. While Twitch continues to be far and away number one, the battle for second place is raging on.

Facebook Gaming pulled ahead of YouTube by nearly two full percentage points, as Facebook had 15.7% of total viewership and YouTube finished with 13.8%. Twitch stayed way ahead of the pack at 70.5% of all viewership.

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In terms of hours streamed, Facebook crushed YouTube, as they had 17.1 million hours streamed compared to YouTube’s 8.4 million.

Facebook Gaming has pulled in big streamers like DisguisedToast and KingGothalion, and now they are seeing the results of their big-spending start to pay off.

It will be fun to see if Facebook can maintain the momentum as YouTube has been acquiring big names such as TimTheTatman and DrLupo.