Watching someone play video games was once the bane of every high school girl’s existence, but as of this week, it’s a billion dollar business. On Tuesday, Amazon announced that it was buying Twitch, a social and live-streaming platform for gamers, for just over $1 billion. Who knew that so many people were watching and streaming video games? While it’s still unclear how Amazon plans to use it, these charts, via The New York Times illustrate just how many people are streaming and broadcasting themselves as they game.
Sometimes, it’s viewership rivals major cable networks. While game companies hold tournaments and garner some 200,000 viewers, single “full time” broadcasters can get around 20,000 viewers on their own. If you really want to see how Twitch has grown, twitchapps has all the raw data on how many people are watching someone else play Minecraft and when they’re doing it. It will make you think twice the next time you look at your clock: almost 200,000 gamers were tuning in at 7 a.m. this morning.
