In a press release sent out a few hours ago, The Game Awards have announced to have more than doubled their viewership with the recent 2018 broadcast. The total has been measured in 26.2 million global livestreams, up 128% from last year's 11.5 million figure, partly thanks to the over 3300 Twitch creators who co-streamed the broadcast (up over 140% YoY). The 2017 broadcast remains the one with the biggest year-over-year increase, though, as it went up 202% over 2016's 3.8 million figure. Critically, there was significant growth with each year since the first broadcast in 2014.
Geoff Keighley, creator/producer/host of The Game Awards, said in a statement:
Five years in, it’s amazing to see The Game Awards continue to grow both domestically and internationally. 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.
The press release then proceeds to shell out additional impressive figures. This year's broadcast became one of the biggest livestreams registered to date on Twitch with over 1.13 million concurrent viewers during the peak, almost doubling last year's Twitch broadcast in this regard. The YouTube broadcast of The Game Awards 2018 also more than doubled the number of concurrent viewers compared to 2017.
The livestream was also a success on social media. The hashtag usage increased 1.6 times and the overall conversation was 1.9 times bigger, with over 1.8 times the unique participants, compared to last year's program. Even the dedicated The Game Awards broadcast available on Twitter registered 1.3 times more unique viewers this year.
Last but not least, authenticated fan voting also registered a significant 50% year-over-year increase with a total of more than 10.5 million votes logged in. Voting occurred on the official website as well as other platforms ranging from Facebook Messenger, Twitter DM, Discord, and even via Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa.
For a lowdown on the actual announcements made at this year's The Game Awards, jump here.
