10 Years of Twitch: The 10 most important moments for the streaming platform

All month long we’ve been celebrating Twitch’s 10-year anniversary with articles looking back on the top games on the platform, early streaming pioneers and the mainstream rise of streaming in recent years. Our final article on Twitch this month looks back on the 10 biggest moments for the streaming platform.

June 6, 2011: The launch of Twitch

From 2006 to 2011, Justin.TV had certainly captured something, but it wasn’t clear exactly what. The site, launched by Justin Kan as a 24/7 livestreaming platform of his own life, had expanded into the nascent world of esports, hosted plenty of illegal sports streams and was the much smaller live version of the booming YouTube in the world of online video hosting.

Gaming content quickly became the most popular attraction on the site. It became so popular, Justin.TV decided to create a sub brand to house gaming content called Twitch.tv. Esports, especially StarCraft 2, were at the center.

“Twitch exists in the first place because StarCraft 2 streams had a lot of momentum,” said Ben Goldhaber, who was hired as Justin.TV’s Gaming Outreach Manager and became one of the founding employees of Twitch. “Team Liquid was aggregating all of the beta streams that were happening in the early, early part of the StarCraft 2 beta. Emmett Shear, who would later become CEO, that’s what he was watching the most.”

Plus, Justin.tv needed a change from all the pirated sports streams.

“The team was looking to pivot away from what Justin.TV was becoming, which was a place to watch illegal football and soccer streams,” Goldhaber said. “They wanted to find some other direction to move away from the perilous direction they were going in.”

Photo credit: Riot Games

Oct. 13, 2012: League of Legends World Championship becomes most watched esports event ever

The first League of Legends champion was crowned in 2011, but the 2012 finals were the true jumping off point for LoL esports. Instead of a prize of $100,000 like 2011, the prize was $2 million. At one point over 1 million people were watching the event, making it the most watched esports event of all time to that point.

Read more: The most watched games on Twitch for every year over the last decade

Every year, League of Legends breaks its own record and in only a few years has the game ever not been the most watched game by total hours watched in Twitch’s history. League of Legends Worlds was first held just a few weeks after Twitch launched. Both the platform and the game have each other to thank as the mutually beneficial relationship led to absurd success over the next decade.

Aug. 25, 2014: Twitch acquired by Amazon for $970 million

A heist. Now, Twitch might never have reached the heights it is at today without Amazon’s backing, and, if it wasn’t Amazon, Google likely would have bought it up to pair with YouTube. But the price of just under $1 billion dollars appears to be a massive value just seven years later.

Read more: The early pioneers of Twitch and how they shaped the platform

It’s hard to say exactly what Twitch is worth in 2021. Some estimates place it at $5-6 billion. But right now, Discord is reportedly eyeing a sale at around $10 billion. They have different profit models and use cases, but from the eye test alone, Twitch seems like it should be more valuable than Discord or at least on the same level.

On Nerd Street’s podcast interview with Goldhaber, this topic comes up.

Mitch: So Amazon buys Twitch for $970 million, which is just an absolute steal in hindsight. I’m not sure exactly what Twitch is worth but safe to say it’s 10 times?

Ben: Yeah, yeah for sure.

Mitch: 20 times?

Ben: Yeah, probably

October 3, 2016: Twitch launches Twitch Prime

When Amazon bought Twitch, not a ton of things changed immediately.

“There was no immediate change, Twitch was already pretty big at the time,” Goldhaber remembered. “There were hundreds of employees, so it wasn’t a small startup by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, Amazon has since made extremely substantial changes to the culture of Twitch, to the way that Twitch operates. Twitch is now thousands upon thousands of employees, but it wasn’t a sudden switch.”

When Twitch rolled out Twitch Prime in accordance with Amazon Prime, the reach of the platform to Amazon’s overall business started to become more clear. All members of Amazon Prime received one subscription per month backed by Prime. That allowed a lot of streamers to receive a solid increase in subscriptions and helped serve as a bridge for people who weren’t spending money on Twitch to begin to understand the value of subscribing to a certain streamer.

For Amazon, it was also time for Twitch to start paying its keep.

“It felt smooth at the time of acquisition, but that didn’t last forever,” said Goldhaber who has since gone on to found Juked.gg. “I’ve been out of Twitch for two or three years now, but, if you look at how Twitch is operating, they’re very much driven by OK, it’s time to start making the ROI.’ Yes, Twitch is worth ten to twenty times more than it was when Amazon purchased it, but it also hasn’t always been able to make a ton of money.”

August 2017: The battle royale explosion begins with PUBG’s popularity on Twitch

Previously, the top games on Twitch revolved around esports events. With battle royale, that started to change. The added chances for communication with the audience made the game mode super streamer-friendly and also addicting to play. PUBG released in March 2017, and in August it was the most watched game on Twitch, according to SullyGnome. It garnered even more viewers than Dota 2 that month, a month when many viewers watch Dota 2’s biggest event of the year: The International. That year, PUBG rose to No. 2 in most watched games by hours watched. In 2018, Fortnite became the first game besides League of Legends to be the most watched title on Twitch.

The battle royale genre changed so much because the esports side was secondary. Esports, by their nature, are often watched by hardcore gamers who understand the complexities shown by the best players. In battle royale titles, people who tried too hard were labelled “sweaty,” with the focus being put on the most entertaining players, not necessarily the best of the best.

The battle royale genre highlighted a shift from esports pros to content creators that’s still being pushed today.

Read more: How the biggest channels on Twitch have changed over the last six years

“In the cultural zeitgeist, esports isn’t actually where it used to be,” Goldhaber said. “Streaming and influencers have actually grown way faster than esports have grown. Back in the early days, esports was 75% of Twitch’s viewership. It was all about esports. Now esports is probably less than 10% of Twitch’s overall traffic.”

March 14, 2018: Ninja streams with Drake setting the record for most cumulative viewers at the time

The ultimate gaming and culture crossover. Some musicians had been on Twitch for a few years prior. Zedd and Deadmau5, two popular EDM artists, had been streaming events and music production on Twitch. But when Tyler “Ninja” Blevins was joined by Drake at the height of Fortnite’s popularity in 2018, it was a marker of the mainstreaming of video games.

Drake was the biggest artist in the world. Literally overnight, Ninja became the biggest streamer.

Eventually the duo was joined by Travis Scott and NFL player Juju Smith-Schuster. The stream reached a peak of about 617,000 viewers. The record set that night has since been broken, but none of the following streams represented the same cultural milestone. This event might have been what catapulted Ninja into mainstream stardom, but he was already popular enough for Drake to come and stream with him, so he’d accomplished plenty before this stream as well. At the center of this cultural moment was Twitch, providing the vehicle for the interaction.

“Ninja broke into the mainstream in a way no other streamer ever has,” Goldhaber said. “He was on the front page of ESPN the Magazine. The Hollywood Reporter. He transcended into the mainstream culture of America, of the Western world. It was that deep.”

Ninja remains the most followed account on Twitch with a healthy margin between him and Turner “Tfue” Tenney in second. His jump to Mixer left him with fewer viewers on Twitch than when he left but he took his time on top and cemented his place in gaming history.

March 2020: The coronavirus pandemic leads to Twitch viewership explosion

What does everyone do when suddenly the outside world becomes a no-go? They watch video games apparently. When COVID-19 reached the U.S. and caused the same lockdowns that had already begun in Europe and Asia, numbers on Twitch skyrocketed.

Twitch’s viewership increased about 67%, rising from 11 billion hours watched in 2019 to 18.4 billion hours watched in 2020. This rise, and the lack of major events that used to provide the framework for a year on the gaming calendar, helped fuel the rise of a new Twitch meta. Chess, Fall Guys, Among Us and more titles all experienced brief moments in the sun throughout 2020 as streamers began branching into more variety content with everyone stuck at home.

Among Us got so popular that even politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on the platform in October to play the game with other popular streamers including Imane “Pokimane” Anys, Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang and Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker. The stream was one of the most watched ever on an individual’s channel with over 400,000 people tuning in at the peak. With Among Us driving tons of content and voting being a core mechanic of the game, it served as a vehicle to remind people to vote in the upcoming election. The actual calls to action were fairly sparse, but the stream represented once again Twitch going truly mainstream as other politicians also started carving out space on the platform.

Read more: Inside the Twitch Meta in May: xQc is the meta

Coincidentally, Riot Games’ VALORANT also began the game’s long-awaited beta a few weeks after the pandemic shut everything down. The combination of unmatched free time, a bored audience, a high-profile game and a beta only available through drops on stream sent VALORANT into record-breaking territory from Day 1.

When the game became publicly available in June, the hype had subsided a bit, but now, one year later, VALORANT has become one of the biggest esports in the world with over 1 million concurrent viewers watching Sentinels take down Fnatic in the grand finals of Stage 2 Masters.

June 22, 2020: Mixer is shut down and Twitch defends against competition once again

In Twitch’s early years, the platform faced plenty of competition. In that race, Twitch came out on top. In 2019, the competition started again. Pushed by Microsoft’s Mixer, YouTube Gaming and Facebook Gaming, a race began for the biggest video game streamers out there.

It started, unsurprisingly, with Ninja. In August 2019, Ninja signed a multiyear deal with Mixer worth a reported $30 million. Michael “shroud” Grzesiek followed soon after and the race was on. YouTube grabbed Jack “CouRage” Dunlop, and Facebook Gaming brought on Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang.

But Mixer was the most high-profile challenger. The company signed two of the top three most followed streamers on Twitch at the time. It didn’t matter. Despite the celebrity of Ninja and the history of shroud, Mixer’s market share hardly moved. Less than a year after signing both streamers, Mixer shut down. Both shroud and Ninja moved back to Twitch where they’ve returned to their main audiences, with Mixer proving to be a momentary (and monetary) speed bump in their careers.

“It was a feather in Twitch’s cap that when literally the site’s biggest streamer left the platform, it actually didn’t impact the overall user base of the platform in a significant way,” Goldhaber said. “This didn’t start with Mixer either. Own3d was the original Mixer in that they were constantly fighting Twitch for every big influencer. That drove up the amount you had to pay to get streamers, one could say inflated.”

While Mixer shutdown, YouTube Gaming and even Facebook Gaming have continued to grow. YouTube became a home for Guy “DrDisrespect” Beahm after the streamer’s mysterious ban from Twitch. The site also challenged Twitch for the broadcast rights to Activision Blizzard’s franchised leagues the Call of Duty League and the Overwatch League. But none of it has really mattered, at least not yet, as Twitch continues to grow and challengers are struggling to claw into the site’s market share.

Image credit: The Grefg/Twitter

January 11, 2021: The Grefg’s record-breaking streaming shows immense reach and potential of Just Chatting

With nearly 2.5 million viewers waiting to see the reveal of his Fortnite skin, The Grefg’s record-breaking stream at the start of this year revealed more than just a skin. Just Chatting offers added communication, a return to Twitch’s Justin.TV roots and a category with incredible flexibility, especially with audiences who don’t speak English. In 2020, the category completed its rise to the most watched category on Twitch. Halfway through 2021, it has stayed on top, and, honestly, it’s unlikely that it ever leaves that top spot.

Just Chatting is also the most multilingual category on the platform. Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian and French speaking streamers are all top channels on Just Chatting. It’s a unique mix of various cultures which is rare in individual game categories as different games are popular in different regions. Just Chatting is popular everywhere. In 2021, three of the top five most watched streamers on Twitch don’t primarily speak English on their streams. Twitch is going international and Just Chatting is leading the way.

“Esports is less of Twitch’s overall traffic because of Just Chatting and a change in what kids aspire to be,” Goldhaber said. “When we first founded Twitch, it was a cultural moment. Five years later, kids wanted to grow up to be esports players. Now kids grow up wanting to be influencers. Esports will continue to grow, the industry will mature and become more stable. But the current zeitgeist isn’t the same as it was in 2012, 2013 and 2014.”

June 2, 2021: Alexandre “Gaules” Borba signs on as co-streamer of NBA games on Twitch

This moment, individually, isn’t as important as other ones on this list. But it points to an important trend for Twitch going forward -- the increase of live sports on the platform.

Somehow Twitch has a way of coming full circle. Justin.TV started as a 24/7 livestream with a primary focus that wasn’t gaming and also hosted plenty of illegal sports streams. Now, 10 years later, Ludwig Ahgren is running 24/7 subathons, Just Chatting has taken over as the top form of content and Twitch is brokering legal media rights deals with sports leagues.

Live sports are the lifeblood of cable TV. In recent years, Twitch has slowly started getting pieces of live sports itself. Thursday Night Football games have been available for a few years now. Select English Premier League soccer games are also available. Twitch has the German rights for the UEFA Champions League and a deal with USA Basketball. In June, Twitch signed a deal with Gaules, the second most watched streamer on Twitch, to let the Brazilian influencer co-stream NBA games during the playoffs.

The primary broadcast rights for sports leagues are a heated competition every few years between Fox, ESPN, ABC, CBS and NBC. So far, Amazon and Twitch have been happy to make small inroads at the sides of these multibillion dollar deals. For the NFL’s upcoming media rights deal. which has already been negotiated and starts in 2023, Amazon paid about $1 billion for the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football. That’s for Amazon Prime and also Twitch. Still, the entire deal could be worth about $100 billion so Amazon is still only a small piece.

That NFL deal runs until 2033 but other leagues will come up in the meantime. If Amazon ever really wants to throw the company’s weight around, the company that brings in more revenue than any other company in the world could certainly make things interesting for the legacy TV networks. As we look toward the next decade of Twitch, that’s an area to watch.