Record-Breaking Industry Growth
YouTube Gaming reached a record 8.8B hours watched in 2025. This marks a 12% increase from the previous year, showing the platform’s ongoing growth and its ability to set new viewership records.
Focused Report · 2025
YouTube Gaming 2025 Live Streaming Trends Report
Download the 2025 YouTube Gaming Report. Discover how YTG hit 8.8B hours watched, the rise of Roblox, and why Japan is the platform's top region.
What’s inside
The Findings, in Brief.
Expanding Market Share
Learn how YouTube Gaming is taking a bigger share of the live-streaming market:
- YouTube Gaming now accounts for nearly 1-in-4 hours (24%) of all live-streaming gaming watched across all live-streaming gaming platforms.
- Since 2018, the platform’s market share has grown from 19% to 24%, demonstrating steady growth.
- In 2025 alone, YTG registered 1.2B hours of dedicated esports viewership.
Global Creator & Content Diversity
Discover the regions and formats driving the most engagement:
- Japan leads in global viewership, with top Japanese channels totalling 451M hours watched in 2025.
- YouTube Shorts peaked at 6M gaming-related posts in August 2025, as creators increasingly turn to short-form content to direct audiences to live streams.
- The VTuber landscape is thriving; VTuber agency Hololive makes up half of the Top 10 VTuber channels, totaling over 150M hours watched.
The Return of Sponsored Content
Data shows a significant comeback of sponsored content, with viewership of streams containing #ad in the title reaching 4.5M hours in Q4 2025 (the highest level seen since 2020!)
Use Hatchet Data to Make the Next Readout Easier to Defend.
Creator, audience, and campaign intelligence for gaming teams, in one place.