Twitch: most followed channels 2024
As of December 2024, ninja (real name: Richard Tyler Blevins) was the most followed live streamer on Twitch with over 19.14 million followers. Ninja saw a meteoric rise to fame when he was one of the first top-ranked players to stream the then newly released Fortnite Battle Royale at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018. Spanish streamer ibai (real name: Ibai Llanos Garatea) was ranked second with 17.19 million followers on Twitch.
The top games on Twitch
Despite being released way back in 2013, GTA V is still among the most popular games on Twitch. The action adventure classic accounted for 5.2 percent of total hours watched on the platform in November 2024. In contrast, the most popular game on Twitch in terms of average number of channels was Fortnite - the battle royale title had 5,819 channels streaming the game in June 2024. Other top-ranked games include Valorant, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.
Twitch - how it all began
Founded in 2011, Twitch was initially launched as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform Justin.tv. The site primarily focuses on video gaming, including play through of video games, broadcasts of e-sports competitions, and more recently, creative content. Twitch Creative, the outlet for creative content, was launched on October 28, 2015. The launch included a marathon of Bob Ross ' "The Joy of Painting". Some of the most popular channels on Twitch are owned by YouTube gaming personalities, who are taking advantage of the website’s live-streaming capabilities to interact more with their audiences. Users are able to participate in a live chat during the video broadcast, with broadcasters frequently reacting to and replying to comments and questions from the chat in real time. In August 2014, Twitch was acquired by Amazon for 970 million U.S. dollars. It was the company’s fifth most expensive acquisition of all time.
