LGC: ‘People want videos, not written reviews,’ says Twitch

Consumers are switching off their TVs to watch gamers play the latest releases on the platform, says Twitch.

Stuart Saw, regional director of EMEA at Twitch took to the stage at the London Games Conference 2013 to highlight how gamers are turning to Twitch for their gaming content.

People want live content, not written reviews. They want to get involved, ” said Saw.

People are no longer watching TV. They are no longer just static. The interactivity on Twitch is a massive factor driving these engagement numbers.

And the numbers don’t lie.

Twitch is now reaching 44m unique viewers each month and has achieved over 55m active users this year.

Saw highlighted the numbers as a monumental shift” as the number of Twitch broadcasters streaming their content tripled in 2013 to 1m per month.

He added: Every reason you could have for watching TV is there.”

Saw linked the growth of Twitch to the eSports boom, which has led more consumers to the platform to catch these events.

Streams of key eSports events DOTA 2 and League of Legends championships led over 5m unique to the site, while each event’s individual streams attracted 4.5m and 5m viewers respectively.

In fact, Twitch says the demand for eSports is quickly outpacing that witnessed for traditional sports, with these numbers outperforming the expected audience for this year’s Ashes Cricket event.

Saw summarised that Twitch serves as a key marketing tool for publishers, effectively allowing games to sell their games for them.

Live streaming makes it possible to grow a community around any game or product,” said Saw.